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The Holy Family

ca. 1585
Not on view
Returned to lender
This work of art was on loan to the museum and has since been returned to its lender.
All the artist’s known pictures of the Virgin and Child date from his Spanish years and include Saint Joseph, whose cult flourished during the Counter-Reformation. Male saints painted by El Greco are often strongly individualized, but not his female saints and especially not the Virgin, who here is granted the beauty and grace of a Mannerist Madonna. One of the painter’s loyal patrons, Pedro Lasso de la Vega, owned a Nuestra Señora de la leche by El Greco, which could well have been this work.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: The Holy Family
  • Artist: El Greco (Domenikos Theotokopoulos) (Greek, Iráklion (Candia) 1541–1614 Toledo)
  • Date: ca. 1585
  • Medium: Oil on canvas
  • Dimensions: 41 3/4 × 34 7/16 in. (106 × 87.5 cm)
  • Classification: Paintings
  • Credit Line: On loan from The Hispanic Society of America, New York, NY
  • Curatorial Department: European Paintings