About This Artwork

El Greco (Domenikos Theotokopoulos)
Spanish, 1541-1614

Saint Martin and the Beggar, 1597/1600

Oil on canvas
43 5/16 x 24 13/16 in. (110 x 63 cm); original painted surface: 42 5/16 x 22 7/8 in. (107.5 x 58 cm)
Inscribed, lower right: Domenikos Theotokopoulos Kres epoiei [transliterated]
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Chauncey McCormick, 1949.1093

Exhibition, Publication and Ownership Histories

Exhibition History

New York, Knoedler, Loan Exhibition of Paintings by El Greco and Goya for the Benefit of the American Women War Relief Fund and the Belgian Relief Fund, 1915, no. 4.

Art Institute of Chicago, A Century of Progress, 1933, no. 176.

Art Institute of Chicago, A Century of Progress, 1934, no. 76.

Columbus (Ohio) Gallery of Fine Arts, Spanish Paintings, Textiles,
Furniture, Arms, and Pottery, 1936 (no cat.).

Norfolk, Va., Chrysler Museum of Art, The Genius of El Greco: Masterpieces from the Art Institute of Chicago, 1998 (no cat.).

Publication History

August L. Mayer, El Greco: Eine Einfu_hrung in das Leben und Wirken des Domenico Theotocoupuli, rev. ed., Munich, 1916, p. 52.

Georgiana Goddard King, “The Rider on the White Horse,” Art Bulletin 5 (1922), p. 9, fig. 1.

M[arian] C[omings], “El Grecos in the Art Institute,” Bulletin of the Art Institute of Chicago 18 (1924), pp. 29 (ill.), 32–33.

Exposition d’art espagnol, exh. cat., Paris, Hôtel Jacques-Charpentier, 1925, p. 93, under no. 48.

August L. Mayer, Dominico Theotocopuli, Munich, 1926, p. 48, no. 298.

A[lice] C[hild] J[enckes], “Two Paintings by El Greco,” [Boston] Museum of Fine Arts Bulletin 25 (1927), p. 17.

Emilio Huguet del Villar, El Greco en España, Madrid, 1928, p. 103.

August L. Mayer, “‘St. Martin with the Beggar’ by El Greco,” Apollo 10 (1929), p. 151 (ill. opp. p. 151).

Walter Dill Scott and Robert B. Harshe, Charles Deering, 1852–1927: An Appreciation, Boston, 1929, p. 49 (ill.).

Ella S. Siple, “Art in America: Messrs. Knoedler’s Exhibition,” Burlington Magazine 55 (1929), p. 332.

Frank Rutter, El Greco (1541–1614), New York, 1930, pp. 62, 98, no. 78, pl. 69.

A[lexandru] Busuioceanu, “Les Tableaux du Greco dans la collection royale de Roumanie,” Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 6th ser., 11 (1934), p. 298.

“Spanish Paintings, Textiles, Furniture, Arms, and Pottery,” Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts Monthly Bulletin 7, 1 (Oct. 1936), p. 2.

Alexandru Busuioceanu, Les Tableaux du Greco de la collection royale de Roumanie, Brussels, 1937, p. 17 (ill.).

Domenico Theotocopuli, El Greco, exh. cat., Paris, Gazette des Beaux-Arts,
1937, n.pag., under no. 4.

M[aurice] Legendre and A[lbert] Hartmann, Domenikos Theotokopoulos, Called El Greco, Paris, 1937, p. 464 (ill.)

Walter W. S. Cook, “Spanish Paintings in the National Gallery of Art: El Greco to Goya,” Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 6th ser., 28 (1945), p. 72.

José Camón Aznar, Dominico Greco, vol. 2, Madrid, 1950, pp. 702, 1382–83, no. 524, fig. 534; rev. ed., vol. 2, 1970, pp. 711–12, 1367, no. 524, fig. 540.

“St. Martin and the Beggar,” Bulletin of the Art Institute of Chicago 44 (1950), pp. 61–62 (cover ill.).

Antonina Vallentin, El Greco, trans. Andrew Révai and Robin Chancellor, New York, 1955, p. 204.

The Art Institute of Chicago, An Illustrated Guide to the Collections of The Art Institute of Chicago, 1956, p. 29.

Halldor Soehner, “Ein Hauptwerk Grecos: Die Kapelle San José in Toledo,” Zeitschrift fu_r Kunstwissenschaft 9 (1957), p. 215 n. 88.

Juan Antonio Gaya Nuño, La pintura española fuera de España, Madrid, 1958, p. 200, no. 1356.

Louis Réau, Iconographie de l’art chrétien, vol. 3, Paris, 1958, p. 908.

The Art Institute of Chicago, Paintings in The Art Institute of Chicago: A Catalogue of the Picture Collection, 1961, p. 205.

Halldor Soehner, Una obra maestra de El Greco: La capilla de San José de Toledo, trans. María de los Angeles Vázquez de Parga, Madrid, 1961, p. 40 n. 88.

Harold E. Wethey, El Greco and His School, Princeton, 1962, vol. 1, fig. 120, vol. 2, p. 247, no. X-402; rev. Spanish ed., trans. Carlos Cid, Madrid, 1967, vol. 1, pl. 104, vol. 2, pp. 262–63, no. X-402.

Frederick A. Sweet, “Great Chicago Collectors,” Apollo 84 (1966), pp. 204, 206–07, fig. 42.

Tiziana Frati, L’opera completa del Greco, Milan, 1969, p. 109, no. 105c2.

Enrique Lafuente Ferrari and José Manuel Pita Andrade, El Greco di Toledo e il suo espressionismo estremo, Milan, 1969, p. 121; Eng. ed., trans. Robert Erich Wolf, New York, 1969.

Manuel B. Cossío, El Greco, rev. ed. by Natalia Cossío de Jiménez, Madrid, 1972, pp. 192, 386, no. 284.

Jacques Lassaigne, El Greco, trans. Jane Brenton, London, 1973, p. 141. Morse 1979, p. 154.

Alfonso E. Pérez Sánchez, “On the Reconstruction of El Greco’s Dispersed Altarpieces,” El Greco of Toledo, exh. cat., Toledo Museum of Art, 1982, p. 168.

Jonathan Brown and Richard George Mann, Spanish Paintings of the Fifteenth through Nineteenth Centuries, Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue, Washington, D.C., 1990, pp. 78–83 (ill.).

Susanna P. Griswold, “Two Paintings by El Greco: Saint Martin and
the Beggar,” Studies in the History of Art 41 (1993), pp. 139, 149 n. 4, fig. 8.

Susan Alyson Stein, in Splendid Legacy: The Havemeyer Collection, exh. cat., New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1993, pp. 256, 259.

Ownership History

Possibly in the artist’s studio at the time of his death, 1614 [the 1614 inventory of the artist’s estate includes “un S. Martin” (a St. Martin); transcribed by F[rancisco] de B[orja de] San Román [y Fernández], El Greco en Toledo, Madrid, 1910, p. 193]; possibly by descent to his son, Jorge Manuel Theotocopoulos (d. 1631), Toledo [the 1621 inventory of Jorge Manuel’s possessions includes “170 Un San Martin a caballo, de bara y terzia y tres quartas” (170 A Saint Martin on horseback, of one vara and a third by three quarters); transcribed by Francisco de Borja de San Román y Fernández, “De la vida del Greco,” Archivo español de arte y arqueología 3 (1927), p. 301]. Marquis de Perinat, Madrid, by 1910 [according to New York 1915]. Durand-Ruel, Paris, by 1912, with a half-share sold to Knoedler, New York [Stein 1993, p. 259, citing documents in the Durand-Ruel Archives, Paris, and letters to Louisine W. Havemeyer]; sold by Knoedler to Charles Deering (d. 1927), Chicago, by 1922; on loan to the AIC from 1922 [On loan from 1922 to 1931, when it was sent to Mr. and Mrs. Chauncey McCormick; Art Institute Archives]; given to his daughters Mrs. Chauncey McCormick and Mrs. Richard E. Danielson, 1924; Mrs. Chauncey McCormick, in a division of their joint property, by 1931; given to the Art Institute, 1949.