Le Couronnement de la Vierge

El Greco made this Coronation of the Virgin for the high altar of the shrine of Our Lady of Charity in Illescas, a town on the road between Madrid and Toledo, as one of a group of paintings commissioned for the sanctuary in his last decade. Mary is lifted up between God the Father and Christ, who lower the crown together, while the dove of the Holy Spirit hovers above and angels and clouds pack the space around them. By this point the elongated bodies and cold, flickering light that make his figures seem to burn were fully his own. Most of the Illescas group still hangs in the church it was painted for.