A Sagrada Família com Santa Maria Madalena

By the time El Greco painted this in Toledo, in the 1590s, he had found the strange, weightless manner that was entirely his own, figures that seem to float in a moody, uncertain light. The scene looks tender and domestic. Mary holds the child, Joseph leans in, and the Magdalen watches from the side. Yet the fruit passing between their hands carries a hidden sermon. The apple stands for the fall of man this child has come to undo, the cherries for his blood, the peach for salvation. Mary supports her son while her gaze drifts past him, already knowing where his life leads. El Greco kept a busy workshop in Toledo turning out versions of such intimate holy scenes for private devotion.