安东尼奥·德·科瓦鲁比亚斯肖像

The man in this portrait was a friend. Antonio de Covarrubias was one of the great humanists of Toledo, a jurist who knew Greek and Latin, and in the years after El Greco settled in the city he helped the painter into its learned circles. By the time this was made, around 1595, Covarrubias was in his eighties and had gone deaf, and El Greco caught something of that inwardness in the tilt of the head and the unfocused eyes. The painter admired him openly, praising his eloquence and his patience. He kept a version of this likeness in his own house until he died.