Ritratto di un uomo

By 1588 El Greco had been living in Toledo for about a decade, a Greek from Crete who had passed through Venice and Rome before finding patrons among the Spanish city's clergy and gentlemen. He was just finishing the huge Burial of the Count of Orgaz for a parish church there, a canvas crowded with exactly these Toledo faces. This is one of them on its own, a man set against a plain dark ground, everything held back so that the pale face and the stiff white collar carry the whole picture. El Greco worked these portraits quickly and from life, and the name of this particular sitter has not come down to us.