The Burial of Count Orgaz

The Burial of the Count of Orgaz
Artist: El Greco
Oil painting on canvas; Size: 480x360cm; Santo Tome, Toledo.

The painting work, signed and dated 1578, was actually executed between 1586 and 1588. The date is set on the handkerchief peeping out of the pocket of the boy kneeling in the foreground on the left, identified by art historians as the painter's son Jorge Manuel, and perhaps refers to the year of his birth. The large canvas painting was commissioned from El Greco by Andres Nunez, priest of the church of Santo Tome, and depicts the miraculous burial of Gonzalo Ruiz, a member of the family later to be made counts of Orgaz, who had died in 1323. According to legend the nobleman's body had been placed in the tomb by St. Augustine and St. Stephen, as a reward for the good works he had carried out during his life, and in particular the foundation of a monastery dedicated to St. Stephen and assigned to the Augustinian Fathers in 1312. Further evidence for this miraculous event appears to have come to light in 1583. The burial takes place before a large group of contemporary personages, among whom the figure in the second row looking toward the observer has been identified as the painter himself, and the priest on the right as the client, while the Virgin, the only woman present, may be a portrait of Dona Jeronimo. de Las Cuevas, mother of El Greco's son. Above among the clouds, Christ is surrounded by hosts of angels and saints, with St. John the Baptist and Mary interceding, in a bipartite scheme of composition, with the celestial vision dominating the upper part of the painting in a manner that was typical of Counter-Reformation art and frequently adopted by El Greco.