El Soplón (Garçon soufflant sur un tison)

Before he was the El Greco of Toledo, with the stretched figures and stormy skies, he was a young Cretan painter making his way through Italy. He painted this in Venice around 1571, and it looks almost nothing like the work he is famous for. A boy leans over a glowing ember, cupping it in his hands to light a candle, his face and fingers reddened by the small flame. El Greco was reaching back to antiquity here. Ancient writers had described a lost Greek painting of a boy blowing on a fire, and he set out to remake it from words alone. He liked the figure enough to use it again years later in another picture.