Saint Luc peignant la Vierge

Before he was El Greco, he was Domenikos Theotokopoulos, a young icon painter on Crete, then ruled by Venice. This small panel of Saint Luke painting the Virgin comes from those early years, around 1560, when he still worked in tempera and gold in the Byzantine manner his island had practised for centuries. The subject was a favourite among painters for an obvious reason: Luke was held to be the first ever to portray the Virgin, and so the patron of their trade. You can already catch the young artist reaching past the flat icon toward Italian modelling and depth. He would leave for Venice, then Rome, then Spain, and become someone else entirely. Here he signs, as he always would, in Greek letters.