Retrato de Carlos de Guisa, cardenal de Lorena, arzobispo de Reims

This dates from 1572, when the painter we call El Greco was still a young Greek working in Rome, years before he moved to Spain and became famous. The sitter is Charles de Guise, cardinal and archbishop of Reims, and one of the most powerful men in France. His family, the Guise, led the hard-line Catholic party through the French wars of religion, and 1572 was the year of the St. Bartholomew's Day killings of Protestants in Paris, which the Guise helped set in motion. On the ledge beside him sits a parrot. In the Italian of the day the words for parrot and pope sounded close enough to make a joke about a French pope, a sly nod to how high this cardinal's ambitions reached. The attribution to El Greco rests on the handling rather than a signature, and several old copies of the portrait survive.