San Luca Evangelista

Around 1610 El Greco's workshop in Toledo was supplying apostolados, complete sets of the 12 apostles with Christ, painted for churches and for private chapels. He produced several of them in his last years with his son Jorge Manuel working beside him, and the surviving sets are split now between Toledo, Oviedo, Madrid and a scattering of museums abroad. Luke is the easy one to find in a set. He was believed to have painted the Virgin's portrait from life, which made him the patron saint of painters, so he is handed an open book with a small image of her inside it. This one is in New York, at the Hispanic Society, which also holds El Greco's Pietà and his Saint Jerome.