The Martyrdom of St. Maurice and the Ten Thousand Thebans

When Philip II of Spain finally saw the picture El Greco had delivered to the Escorial, his vast new monastery-palace outside Madrid, he did not want it. He had commissioned an altarpiece of Saint Maurice, commander of the Theban legion, Christian soldiers of Rome ordered to sacrifice to the pagan gods before battle. Instead of the killing, the painter gave the foreground to the decision itself: Maurice in his armor, talking quietly with his officers about the death they are choosing to accept, with the execution pushed into a far corner. The king wanted something to move a worshipper to prayer, and this cool, crowded conversation did not, so a more conventional version was hung in its place. This canvas is a smaller repetition of that rejected composition. It belonged to King Carol I of Romania and was kept at Peleș Castle before reaching the Bucharest museum. Whether El Greco painted this reduced version himself or his son Jorge Manuel copied it later is still argued. Harold Wethey, who catalogued the artist, gave it to the son.