Saint Martin and the Beggar

c. 1597–c. 1600

El Greco (Doménikos Theotokópoulos; Greek, active in Spain, 1541–1614)

This painting is a small replica of an altarpiece for the private family chapel of San José in Toledo, Spain. The production of smaller versions of commissioned altarpieces allowed El Greco to introduce his creations to a wide market. The composition here includes elements that would have resonated with his audience: Saint Martin wears fashionable contemporary armor, and the walls of Toledo are visible in the distant background. Martin was a popular saint during the period, when acts of charity like the gift of his cloak to a beggar were promoted by the Catholic Church as necessary for earning salvation.

Status: On View, Gallery 206
Department: Painting and Sculpture of Europe

Artist: Domenico Theotokópoulos, called El Greco
Title: Saint Martin and the Beggar
Place: Greece (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1597–1600
Medium: Oil on canvas
Inscriptions: Inscribed lower right: Domenikos Theotokopoulos / Kres epoiei [transliterated]
Dimensions: 110 × 63 cm (43 5/16 × 24 13/16 in.); Framed: 133.4 × 85.7 × 10.2 cm (52 1/2 × 33 3/4 × 4 in.)
Credit Line: Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Chauncey McCormick
Reference Number: 1949.1093
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/67362/manifest.json

Loan exhibition of paintings by El Greco and Goya for the benefit of the American Women War Relief Fund and the Belgian Relief Fund, exh. cat. (New York: M. Knoedler & Co., 1915), 10 cat. 4 [as The Legend of St. Martin].
August L Mayer, El Greco. Eine Einfühlung in da Leben und Werken des Dominico Theotocopuli gennant El Greco (Munich: Delphin Verlag, 1916), 52.
Georgiana Goddard King, “The Rider on the White Horse,” Art Bulletin 5, no. 1 (September 1922): 9, fig. 1.
M[arian] C[omings], “El Grecos in the Art Institute,” Bulletin of the Art Institute of Chicago 18 (March 1924): 29 (ill.), 32–33.
Exposition d’art espagnol, exh. cat. (Paris: Frazier-Soye, 1925), 93 under cat. 48.
August L. Mayer, Dominico Theotocopuli, El Greco: kritisches und illustriertes Verzeichnis des Gesamtwerkes (Munich: F. Hanfstaengl, 1926), 48, no. 298.
A[lice] C[hild] J[enckes], “Two Paintings by El Greco,” Bulletin of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston] 25, no. 148 (April 1927): 17.
Emilio Huguet del Villar, El Greco en España (Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1928), 103.
August L. Mayer, “‘St. Martin with the Beggar’ by El Greco,” Apollo 10 (1929): 151 (ill. opp. p. 151).
Walter Dill Scott and Robert B. Harshe, Charles Deering, 1852-1927: An Appreciation together with his Memoirs of William Deering and James Deering (Boston: Privately Printed, 1929), n.p. (ill), 49.
Ella S. Siple, “Art in America: Messrs. Knoedler’s Exhibition,” Burlington Magazine 55, no. 321 (1929): 332.
Frank Rutter, El Greco (1541–1614) (New York: E. Weyhe, 1930), 62, 98, no. 78, pl. 69.
Catalogue of a Century of Progress Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture Lent from American Collections, exh. cat. (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1933), 27–28 cat. 176.
Catalogue of a Century of Progress Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture, exh. cat. (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1934), 14 cat. 76.
Al[exandru] Busuioceanu, “Les Tableaux du Greco dans la collection royale de Roumanie,” Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 6th ser., 11 (1934): 298.
“Spanish Paintings, Textiles, Furniture, Arms, and Pottery,” Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts Monthly Bulletin 7, 1 (Oct. 1936): 2.
Al[exandru] Busuioceanu, Les Tableaux du Greco de la Collection Royale de Roumanie (Brussels: Editions de la Connaissance; Paris: Editions D’Histoire & D’Art, 1937), 17, n.p. (ill.).
Domenico Theotocopuli, El Greco. Exposition organisée par la Gazette des Beaux-Arts, exh. cat. (Paris: Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 1937), n.p., under cat. 4.
M[aurice] Legendre and A[lbert] Hartmann, Domenikos Theotokopoulos, Called El Greco (Paris: Hypérion, 1937), 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): 72.
José Camón Aznar, Domenico Greco vol. 2 (Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1950), 702, 1382–83, no. 524, fig. 534; rev. ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1970, vol. 2, 711–12, 1367, no. 524, fig. 540.
“St. Martin and the Beggar,” Bulletin of the Art Institute of Chicago 44 (1950): 61–62 (cover ill.).
“Chicago’s Fabulous Collectors: Art Institute Announces it will Get Treasures from Their Homes,” Life Magazine (October 27, 1952): 91 (ill).
Antonia Vallentin, El Greco (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1955), 204.
Art Institute of Chicago, An Illustrated Guide to the Collections of The Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1956), 29.
Halldor Soehner, “Ein Hauptwerk Grecos: Die Kapelle San José in Toledo,” Zeitschrift für Kunstwissenschaft 9 (1957): 215 n. 88.
Juan Antonio Gaya Nuño, La pintura española fuera de España: historia y catálogo (Espasa-Calpe, 1958), 200 no. 1356.
Louis Réau, Iconographie de L’Art Chretien, vol. 3 (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1958), 908.
Art Institute of Chicago, Paintings in The Art Institute of Chicago: A Catalogue of the Picture Collection (Chicago: Art Institute, 1961), 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), 40n88.
Harold E. Wethey, El Greco and His School, vol. 1-2 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1962) vol. 1, fig. 120; vol. 2, 247, no. X-402; rev. Spanish ed., trans. Carlos Cid, Madrid: Guardarrama, 1967, vol. 1, pl. 104; vol. 2, 62–63, no. X-402.
Frederick A. Sweet, “Great Chicago Collectors,” Apollo 84 (September 1966): 204, 206 fig. 42, 207.
Tiziana Frati, L’opera completa del Greco (Milan: Rizzoli, 1969), 109 no. 105c2.
Enrique Lafuente Farrari and José Manuel Pita Andrade, Il Greco di Toledo e il suo espressionismo estremo (Milan: Rizzoli, 1969), 121; Eng. ed., trans. Robert Erich Wolf, New York: Harry Abrams, 1969.
Manuel B. Cossío, El Greco, Natalia Cossío de Jimémez, ed. (Barcelona: Editorial R.M., 1972), 192, 386 no. 284.
Jacques Lassaigne, El Greco, trans. Jane Brenton (London: Thames and Hudson, 1973), 141.
John D. Morse, Old Master Paintings in North America: Over 3000 Masterpieces by 50 Great Artists (New York: Abbeville Press, 1979), 154.
Alfonso E. Pérez Sánchez, “On the Reconstruction of El Greco’s Dispersed Altarpieces,” in El Greco of Toledo, exh. cat., Jonathan Brown, ed., (Boston: Boston, Little, Brown and Company, 1982), 168.
Jonathan Brown and Richard G. Mann, Spanish Paintings of the Fifteenth through Nineteenth Centuries (Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 50, 78, 80 fig. 1, 81–83.
Susanna P. Griswold, “Two Paintings by El Greco: Saint Martin and the Beggar, Analysis and Comparison,” Studies in the History of Art, Monograph ser., 41: Conservation Research (1993): 136, 139 fig. 8, 149n4.
Susan Alyson Stein, in Splendid Legacy: The Havemeyer Collection (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1993), 256, 259.
“The Genius of El Greco: Masterpieces from the Art Institute of Chicago,” El Eco de Virginia, no. 116, Summer Series (1998), 10 (color ill.).
Martha Wolff, ed., Northern European and Spanish Paintings before 1600 in the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008), 72-78, ill.
Palma Martínez-Burgos, El Greco (Madrid: Editorial LIBSA, 2014), 97.
El Siglo de Oro: The Age of Velázquez, exh. cat. (Berlin: Hirmer, 2016), 93 cat. 5.
Germano Celant and Sue Ann Kendall, Famous Artists from Chicago, exh. cat. (Milan: Fondazione Prada, 2017), 12 (color ill.), 13.
Rebecca J. Long, ed., El Greco: Ambition and Defiance, exh. cat. (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2020), 159 cat. 47, 197.
Rebecca J. Long, “El Greco’s l Greco’s Altarpieces: Artistic Ambition and Legal Frustration,” in El Greco: Ambition and Defiance, exh. cat., ed. Rebecca J. Long (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2020), 45.
Leticia Ruiz Gomez, El Greco, exh. cat. (Budapest: Museum of Fine Arts, 2022), 302-03 cat. 61 (ill.).

New York, M. Knoedler & Co., 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, cat. 4.
Art Institute of Chicago, A Century of Progress, June 1–November 1, 1933, cat. 176.
Art Institute of Chicago, A Century of Progress, June 1–November 1, 1934, cat. 76.
Columbus 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, July 1–October 18, 1998, no cat.
Berlin, Staatliche Mussen, El Siglo de Oro: The Age of Velázquez, July 1 - October 30, 2016, cat. 5; Munich, Kunsthalle der Hypo-Kulturstiftung, November 25, 2016 - March 26, 2017.
Paris, Grand Palais, Greco, October 14, 2019–February 10, 2020; Art Institute of Chicago, El Greco: Ambition and Defiance, March 7–June 21, 2020, cat. 47. [Chicago Only].
Budapest, Szépművészeti Múzeum, El Greco in Budapest, Oct. 28, 2022 - Feb. 19, 2023, cat. 61.

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.

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

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