Laocoön, after El Greco

Throughout his life, Duncan Grant copied or made interpretations after works by a wide variety of old masters as well as more recent figures such as Renoir and Cézanne. In his youth these were highly polished and faithful to the original, examples being his copy of Piero della Francesca's Portrait of Federigo da Montefeltro, made in the Uffizi in Florence in the winter of 1904-05 (Charleston Collection, Sussex) and a Chardin still life in the Louvre, copied in 1906 (private collection). Later, his own personal style inflected his many 'versions' of works by such painters as Rembrandt, Poussin, Goya, Delacroix and Gainsborough. It is possible that he was inspired to take El Greco as his source for this painting, one of his most elaborate 'transcriptions', by a visit to Spain in Spring 1936 when his great admiration for the artist was re-confirmed. The Laocoön was on loan at this time to the National Gallery, London, from Prince Paul of Yugoslavia, a noted collector who is known to have visited Grant's studio in the earlier 1930s with a view to purchasing his work.

The painting reflects Grant's rapid, freely-brushed style and heightened colour as it had evolved by the mid-1930s. El Greco's perspectival elisions and elongated figures, particularly those on the right of the painting, continued to influence Grant's figurative compositions, especially his murals for the Russell Chantry Chapel, Lincoln Cathedral, of 1958.

The original Laocoön is in the Samuel H. Kress Collection in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, USA.

R.S.