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El Greco (1541–1614)
Purification of the Temple, ca. 1600
Oil on canvas
16 1/2 x 20 5/8 in. (41.9 x 52.4 cm)
Purchased in 1909During the Counter Reformation, the subject of Christ driving the traders from the temple had a special significance as a reference to the eradication of heresy from the Church. El Greco repeated the theme throughout his career, and his workshop produced many versions of this composition. During Henry Clay Frick’s second trip to Spain, he bought this painting from the art historian Aureliano de Beruete. That Frick considered El Greco to be an inherently modern master was reflected in his display of this canvas in his private sitting room with Manet’s Bullfight and Degas’s Rehearsal.
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El Greco (1541–1614)
St. Jerome, 1590–1600
Oil on canvas
43 1/2 x 37 1/2 in. (110.5 x 95.3 cm)
Purchased in 1905St. Jerome (ca. 342–420), one of the four Doctors of the Western Church, was known for his Latin translation of the Bible, represented here. El Greco depicts him in the robes of a cardinal, and when Henry Clay Frick acquired the work, he mistakenly believed it to be a portrait of Cardinal Gaspar de Quiroga y Vela, Archbishop of Toledo. El Greco and his workshop produced this popular composition at least four times. Another version is in the Lehman Collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
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El Greco (1541–1614)
Vincenzo Anastagi, ca. 1575
Oil on canvas
74 x 49 7/8 in. (188 x 126.7 cm)
Purchased in 1913Vincenzo Anastagi (ca. 1531–1586), a Knight of Malta, helped lead the heroic defense of the island during the Turkish siege of 1565. In 1575, he was named Sergeant Major of Castel Sant’Angelo in Rome, and El Greco’s portrait probably commemorates this event. An incredibly ambitious painting for a young artist trying to establish himself at the papal court, this is the only full-length, standing portrait by El Greco and one of the few surviving works from his Italian sojourn.