Ritratto di un vecchio

By the 1590s Domenikos Theotokopoulos, the Cretan painter Spain called El Greco, had settled for good in Toledo, and he went on signing his pictures in Greek letters long after the Spanish city had become his home. This portrait of an unnamed older gentleman carries that signature above the shoulder. El Greco strips the image to essentials, a gaunt bearded face and a plain white ruff rising out of black, the eyes steady and a little wary. Spanish court portraiture of the age favored exactly this restraint, dark clothing and a sober gaze, and El Greco took it up while keeping his own nervous, flickering touch in the flesh. The man's name is lost, but he was almost certainly one of the Toledo notables among whom the painter lived and worked.