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Lot Essay
El Greco’s portraits of Spanish grandees and ecclesiastics are remarkable for their refined severity of representation and incisive characterization, rendered with an intensity and insight to match that of his religious works. El Greco’s portraiture was profoundly influenced by the example of Titian, which he encountered when he moved to Venice in 1567, and he sought to emulate the dignity, sobriety and psychological penetration of his style (fig. 1). In 1577, El Greco moved to the Spanish city of Toledo where he discovered an enthusiastic audience for his religious images and portraits. Spanish men of the period dressed typically in somber black, relieved only by the stiff white collars that framed their faces, and El Greco rendered these austere visages with a psychological perceptiveness evocative of introspection and contemplation (figs. 2 and 3).
The artist’s singular approach to portraiture is evident in the present work. Though the palette is restrained, a convention for male portraiture of this period dictated in part by the costume, the young subject’s attenuated facial features and elongated hands and fingers glow with an almost otherworldly light. This mystical element is enhanced by his gestures, one hand resting on a seemingly sacred text, the other pointing heavenward.
The identification of the sitter has been a matter of some scholarly debate, with many contending that the work depicts Saint Aloysius (Luigi) Gonzaga, an Italian aristocrat who became a member of the Jesuit order and was canonized following his death caring selflessly for the victims of plague. His mother, a member of Della Rovere family, was a lady-in-waiting to Isabel, the wife of Philip II of Spain, and between 1582 and 1584 the family was called to Spain, where Aloysius became a page to the young Infante Diego, Philip II’s fourth son. In 1583 Aloysius accompanied an Italian relative, Fra Francesco Gonzaga, to attend a meeting in Toledo of the Franciscan order held in the church of San Juan de los Reyes. The young Aloysius would have been around fourteen at the time, and this hypothetically would have been the moment at which he sat for a portrait by El Greco.
This traditional identification has been challenged by some scholars, who have suggested that the sitter is instead a Spanish youth, possibly a young priest or student, for he wears garments associated with the latter. It would not, however, be unusual to represent Aloysius in such attire, as he is the patron saint of students. Perhaps lending further credibility to the identification with the saint, old photographs show that a halo was at some subsequent stage added to the painting. This has since been removed, thereby returning the painting to its original appearance. As Harold Wethey (loc. cit.) notes, the halo could not have been painted by El Greco himself, as Aloysius Gonzaga was not canonized during the artist’s lifetime, and El Greco never painted halos of this type.
A second, also temporary, alteration was made to the painting prior to 1908 when it was in the collection of Pablo Bosch y Barrau in Madrid. According to August L. Mayer, and documented in an early photograph, the youth’s left hand was overpainted with the page of a book, so that the hand appeared to be resting in between the pages of the open book (fig. 4). Perhaps it was this photograph that led both Mayer (op. cit., 1926, p. 52) and Camón Aznar (op. cit., 1950, pp. 1097 and 1908) to speculate, incorrectly, that the composition might exist in two versions. The overpaint was removed at some point before 1913, as demonstrated by the illustration in the sale catalogue of the collection of Marczell von Nemes. There the hand appears as it was originally painted by El Greco, and as it appears today. The overpaint may have been removed by the Paris dealers Trotti et Cie, who had the painting in 1908. A pigment analysis conducted by the University of London has provided further proof that El Greco originally painted the left hand on top of the book as it now appears.
The artist’s singular approach to portraiture is evident in the present work. Though the palette is restrained, a convention for male portraiture of this period dictated in part by the costume, the young subject’s attenuated facial features and elongated hands and fingers glow with an almost otherworldly light. This mystical element is enhanced by his gestures, one hand resting on a seemingly sacred text, the other pointing heavenward.
The identification of the sitter has been a matter of some scholarly debate, with many contending that the work depicts Saint Aloysius (Luigi) Gonzaga, an Italian aristocrat who became a member of the Jesuit order and was canonized following his death caring selflessly for the victims of plague. His mother, a member of Della Rovere family, was a lady-in-waiting to Isabel, the wife of Philip II of Spain, and between 1582 and 1584 the family was called to Spain, where Aloysius became a page to the young Infante Diego, Philip II’s fourth son. In 1583 Aloysius accompanied an Italian relative, Fra Francesco Gonzaga, to attend a meeting in Toledo of the Franciscan order held in the church of San Juan de los Reyes. The young Aloysius would have been around fourteen at the time, and this hypothetically would have been the moment at which he sat for a portrait by El Greco.
This traditional identification has been challenged by some scholars, who have suggested that the sitter is instead a Spanish youth, possibly a young priest or student, for he wears garments associated with the latter. It would not, however, be unusual to represent Aloysius in such attire, as he is the patron saint of students. Perhaps lending further credibility to the identification with the saint, old photographs show that a halo was at some subsequent stage added to the painting. This has since been removed, thereby returning the painting to its original appearance. As Harold Wethey (loc. cit.) notes, the halo could not have been painted by El Greco himself, as Aloysius Gonzaga was not canonized during the artist’s lifetime, and El Greco never painted halos of this type.
A second, also temporary, alteration was made to the painting prior to 1908 when it was in the collection of Pablo Bosch y Barrau in Madrid. According to August L. Mayer, and documented in an early photograph, the youth’s left hand was overpainted with the page of a book, so that the hand appeared to be resting in between the pages of the open book (fig. 4). Perhaps it was this photograph that led both Mayer (op. cit., 1926, p. 52) and Camón Aznar (op. cit., 1950, pp. 1097 and 1908) to speculate, incorrectly, that the composition might exist in two versions. The overpaint was removed at some point before 1913, as demonstrated by the illustration in the sale catalogue of the collection of Marczell von Nemes. There the hand appears as it was originally painted by El Greco, and as it appears today. The overpaint may have been removed by the Paris dealers Trotti et Cie, who had the painting in 1908. A pigment analysis conducted by the University of London has provided further proof that El Greco originally painted the left hand on top of the book as it now appears.