Santiago el Menor

By 1610 El Greco had lived in Toledo for nearly 30 years, a Greek from Crete who never went home. In his last years he kept returning to one idea, a full set of Christ and the 12 apostles, each shown alone against a bare background. This James the Less belongs to that group, 13 canvases now kept together in the house museum near where the painter worked. He holds a book, his face long and lit from within, the drapery breaking into the restless folds that made El Greco look strange to his own century. Cardinal Bernardo de Sandoval y Rojas, the archbishop of Toledo, was among the patrons who kept commissioning him right to the end.