Retrato de Rodrigo de la Fuente

This is one of the rare El Greco portraits where we can put a name to the face. Rodrigo de la Fuente was a doctor in Toledo, well known in the city and a friend of the painter's, part of the circle of learned men El Greco kept around him there. He sits turned slightly, one hand resting on a table, the other on his chest, and on the thumb of that hand is a ring, an old badge of the physician's profession that helped later scholars recognise who he was. El Greco keeps the setting bare and the clothes plain black so that everything gathers in the long, intelligent face and the pale hands. The picture stayed in the royal palace in Madrid until a fire tore through it in 1734, after which it was carried to safety in another palace nearby.