MADRID, SPAIN.-To mark the publication of the catalogue raisonné of the forty-seven works by El Greco in the Museum del Prado, the Museum is presenting the exhibition El Greco in the Prado. For the first time, it brings together all the works by the artist owned by the Museum, including the painting of Saint Bernard, a masterpiece by El Greco that has been on deposit in Toledo since 1910. The exhibition has been organised to focus on the relationship between El Greco and the Prado and the manner in which the works in the group entered the Museum’s collection. It offers visitors a unique opportunity to focus on this outstanding ensemble, which is the finest and largest group of works by El Greco in any museum or collection world-wide.

The first temporary exhibition held in the Prado, in 1902, was in fact devoted to El Greco. One hundred years later, the Museum is once more bringing together its collection of works by the artist in order to present them in a new light and in parallel with the publication of the first catalogue raisonné of these works by Leticia Ruiz, Head of the Department of Spanish Renaissance Painting in the Prado. The 1902 exhibition included around twenty works, comprising all those attributed to El Greco in the Museum’s collection at that time. Happily, and for a variety of reasons, the Museum now has a considerably larger holding and the present exhibition features thirty-seven autograph works by El Greco together with ten by his followers or circle. The exhibition celebrates the publication of the catalogue raisonné and is structured in a way comparable to the book, whose starting-point is the way these works by the artist arrived at the Museum. The first works by El Greco to enter the Prado were from the Spanish royal collection, followed by religious compositions from the now defunct Museo de la Trinidad, while others have been added more recently through donations, bequests and purchases.

In addition to the thirty works by the artist normally to be seen in the Museum’s galleries, other paintings by the artist as well as works by his followers will be shown. These are either not generally on display in a permanent manner or have been on deposit with other institutions. They include Saint Bernard, a masterpiece that has been on deposit with the Casa-Museo del Greco in Toldeo and has not been displayed in the Prado since the 1902 exhibition.

The new catalogue raisonné of the group confirms thirty-seven of the forty-seven works now in the exhibition to be autograph creations by El Greco. The other ten paintings in the exhibition are not published in the catalogue as they are considered by its author to be by followers or to be wholly workshop productions.

The exhibition - The exhibition opens with the earliest works by El Greco to enter the Prado and which came from the Spanish royal collection. Together they conform a gallery of portraits and include paintings of the stature of Gentleman with his Hand on his Breast. For much of the 19th century these paintings gained El Greco fame as the portraitist who best expressed the Spanish aristocratic spirit. Together with these portraits visitors will see The Trinity, painted as part of the altarpiece for the church of Santo Domingo el Antiguo in Toledo. It is one of the artist’s great masterpieces and the first religious painting by El Greco to enter the Prado.

The way in which the collection of El Greco’s work was gradually assembled in the Prado directly influenced the artist’s critical fortunes. Until 1872 he was primarily viewed as a portraitist due to the predominance of this genre within his oeuvre in the Museum, but the arrival in 1872 of fifteen paintings from the Museo del la Trinidad enabled El Greco to be increasingly appreciated for his religious compositions. Outstanding among these is The Annunciation from the “Altarpiece of Doña María de Aragón”, the only commission that the artist secured in Madrid and the focus of the second room in the exhibition.

The fourth room is devoted to the various bequests and donations received by the Prado between 1915 and 1962. These added other major works by El Greco, including Saint Sebastian (donated by the Marchioness of Casa Riera in 1959) and the two unique sculptures of Epimetheus and Pandora (donated by the widow of the Count of las Infantas in 1962). Such donations were exceptionally generous given that the artist’s work was fully appreciated by that period. At the time of the Prado’s foundation in 1819 El Greco was considered a minor member of the Italian school but in the 20th century his unique genius was definitively recognised.

The fifth and final room in the exhibition brings together works purchased by the Museum or by the Spanish State. These purchases have resulted in the addition of further masterpieces, such as The Adoration of the Shepherds, which El Greco painted for his own funerary chapel. In addition, they have functioned to complete gaps or fill out under-represented areas in the Prado’s holdings of his work, including Apostles series, secular paintings such as the magnificent Fábula, and the Italian period. The Museum’s most recent acquisition of a work by the artist, The Flight into Egypt, acquired in 2002, dates from the Italian period.

The catalogue raisonné - The publication of this catalogue is a further milestone in the Prado’s ambitious project to completely revise its painting collection through the publication of catalogues raisonné covering the works of all the artists, periods and schools that make up the collection. The present volume, which offers a detailed study of the work of El Greco (Candia, Crete 1541 - Toledo, Spain, 1614) and of his closest disciples and followers, is the third catalogue raisonné published by the Museum following the publication of the catalogues of Flemish paintings in 1975. The result of years of research involving technical study and the restoration of the entire group, the catalogue contributes important new information. This updating of our knowledge of the works by El Greco in the Prado has clarified numerous artistic and monographic issues.

The core of the catalogue comprises the thirty-seven works that are considered to be autograph, among them the sculptures of Epithemeus and Pandora. The remaining works are by the artist’s school, workshop and followers, including a smaller-format version of The Disrobing of Christ signed by the artist’s son, Jorge Manuel Theotokopoulos.

The catalogue offers a detailed analysis of each of the works in the group, including information on provenance, bibliography, physical condition, restoration history, iconography, visual sources and critical fortune. It also separately analyses the role of those canvases that formed part of major decorative schemes, such as the altarpieces for Santo Domingo el Antiguo and for the Colegio de Doña María de Aragon.

The catalogue entries have been written by Leticia Ruiz Gómez, expert in El Greco and Head of the Department of Spanish Renaissance Painting at the Museo del Prado. She has also written the introductory essay which offers an illuminating survey of the role that El Greco has played within the context of the Prado’s collections over its almost 200 years of history, from his relatively minor presence in the early decades of the 19th century to his full recognition at the beginning of the 20th century.