Saint Francis Kneeling in Meditation

about 1595–about 1600

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

Saint Francis appears here surrounded by symbols associated with his sainthood. The book, for example, speaks to his devotional studies, and the skull is a reminder of the inevitability of death. The painting prompts the viewer to meditate upon the saint in the same way that he prays before the sculpture of the crucified Jesus. At least a dozen other versions of this composition by El Greco exist, evidence of Francis’s tremendous popularity in Toledo, Spain, where the artist worked.

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

Artist: Domenico Theotokópoulos, called El Greco
Title: Saint Francis Kneeling in Meditation
Place: Spain (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.: 1595–1600
Medium: Oil on canvas
Inscriptions: Inscribed lower right: Domenikos Theotocopulos (second line of text illegible)
Dimensions: 92 × 74 cm (36 3/16 × 24 1/8 in.); Painted surface: 89.5 × 72 cm (35 1/4 × 28 3/8 in.)
Credit Line: Robert A. Waller Memorial Fund
Reference Number: 1935.372
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/21907/manifest.json

J. Lacoste, Exposición de las obras de Domenico Theotocópouli, llamado El Greco, exh. cat. (Santa Catalina: J. Sastre et cetera, 1902), 27 cat. 47.
Manuel B. Cossío, El Greco, 2 vols. (Madrid: V. Suárez, 1908), 576, no. 139; rev. ed. by Natalia Cossío de Jiménez (Barcelona: Editorial R.M., 1972), 379, no. 215.
August L. Mayer, Dominico Theotocopuli, El Greco: Kritisches und Illustriertes Verzeichnis des Gesamtwerke (Munich: F. Hanfstaengl, 1926), 42 (ill.), 43, no. 267.
“Spanish Paintings, Textiles, Furniture, Arms and Pottery,” Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts Monthly Bulletin 7, no. 1 (October 1936): 2.
“Fifteen New Acquisitions at Chicago,” Art News 35, no. 1 (1936), 9–10 (ill.).
M[aurice] Legendre and A[lbert] Hartmann, Domenikos Theotokopoulos, Called El Greco (Paris: Hypérion, 1937), 377 (ill.).
Daniel Catton Rich, “An El Greco and a Velasquez,” Art Institute of Chicago Bulletin 31, no. 1 (January 1937): 1–3 (ill.).
“Robert B. Harshe” (obituary), Art Institute of Chicago Bulletin 33, no. 4 part 2 (April - May 1938): 50 (ill.).
F[rancisco] J[avier] Sánchez Cantón, De Barnaba da Modena a Goya: Exposición de pinturas de los siglos XIV al XIX recuperadas por España, exh. cat. (Madrid: Museo del Prado, 1939), 11.
José Camón Aznar, Dominico Greco, vol. 1 (Madrid: Espada-Calpe, 1950), 364, fig. 240; vol. 2, 1385, nos. 578, 580; rev. ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1970), vol. 1, 383, 390, fig. 277, vol. 2, 1371, no. 584.
Juan Antonio Gaya Nuño, La pintura española fuera de España: Historia y Catálogo (Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1958), 203 no. 1391.
Art Institute of Chicago, Paintings in The Art Institute of Chicago: A Catalogue of the Picture Collection (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1961), 100 (ill.), 204.
José Gudiol, “Iconography and Chronology in El Greco’s Paintings of Saint Francis,” Art Bulletin 44, no. 3 (September 1962): 202.
Harold E. Wethey, El Greco and His School vol.2 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1962), 122, no. 220; rev. Spanish ed., trans. Carlos Cid, Madrid, 1967, vol. 2, p. 135, no. 220.
Tiziana Frati, L’opera completa del Greco (Milan: Rizzoli, 1969), 108, no. 102b.
Albert Châtelet, Cent Chefs-d’oeuvre du Musée de Lille (1970): 58, under no. 21.
José Gudiol, Doménikos Theotokopoulos: El Greco, 1541-1614 (Barcelona: Secker & Warburg, 1971), 351, no. 164; rev. English ed., trans. Kenneth Lyons (London: Secker & Warburg, 1973).
Manuel B. Cossío, El Greco, Natalia Cossío de Jimémez, ed. (Barcelona: Editorial R.M., 1972), 379 no. 215.
John D. Morse, Old master paintings in North America: Over 3000 Masterpieces by 50 Great Artists (New York: Abbeville Press, 1979), 154.
Juan J. Luna, Tesoros del Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao: pintura, 1400-1939. exh. cat. (Bilbao: Fundación Rich, 1989), 35, under no. 3.
José Álvarez Lopera, El Greco: La obra esencial (Madrid: Sílex, 1993), 289 no. 214.
Arnaud Brejon de Lavergnée, “Saint François en prière devant le crucifix,” in De Veronese à Goya: Tableaux et dessins du Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille, exh. cat. (Tokyo: Asahi Shinbunsha, 1993), under lot 3 (ill.).
Old Master Paintings Including Pictures from the Fattorini Collection and Pictures from the Collection formed by the British Rail Pension Fund, sale cat., London, Sotheby’s, July 3, 1996, 230, under lot 257.
“The Genius of El Greco: Masterpieces from the Art Institute of Chicago,” El Eco de Virginia no. 116, Summer Series, 10 (color ill.).
Spanish Old Master Paintings Including Velázquez’s Sana Rufina, sale cat., New York, Christie’s, January 29, 1999, under lot 199.
José Álvarez Lopera, ed., El Greco: Identity and Transformation, exh. cat. (Madrid, SKIRA, 1999), 420, under no. 54.
Richard George Mann, “Tradition and Originality in El Greco’s Work: His Synthesis of Byzantine and Renaissance Conceptions of Art,” Quidditas 23 (2002): 103–10, fig. 2.
Old Master Pictures, sale cat., London, Christie’s, July 7, 2004, 138, under no. 76.
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), 62-67, ill.
Cynthia Kuniej Berry, et. al, “Multiplicity, Authorship, and Chronology: An Integrated Evaluation of Four Images of Saint Francis by El Greco,” in Marika Spring, ed., Studying Old Master Paintings: Technology and Practice, The National Gallery Technical Bulletin 30th Anniversary Conference Postprints (London: Archetype Publications, 2011), 125–35 figs. 1c, 3b, 6c.
Rebecca J. Long, ed., El Greco: Ambition and Defiance, exh. cat. (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2020), 15, 133-34, 144 cat. 35, 197.
Leticia Ruiz Gómez, “El Greco’s Workshop in Spain,” in El Greco: Ambition and Defiance, exh. cat., ed. Rebecca J. Long (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2020), 87.

Madrid, Museo del Prado, Exposición de las obras de Domenico Theotocópouli, llamado El Greco, April 30 - July 31, 1902, cat. 47.
Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts, Spanish Paintings, Textiles, Furniture, Arms, and Pottery, 1936, no cat.
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Museum of Art, Masters of Spanish Painting, 1937, 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.
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. 35. [Chicago Only].

Possibly in the artist’s possession at the time of his death, 1614 [see 1614 inventory of the artist’s estate in Francisco de Borja de San Román y Fernández, El Greco en Toledo (1910), repr., with notes by Rafael Sancho, Toledo, 1982, pp. 205–08]. Don Clemente de Velasco, Madrid, by 1902, until 1926 [recorded in the Velasco collection in 1902 exh. cat. and in Mayer 1926, p. 19, no. 114, pl. 7]. Durlacher Brothers, New York, by 1935 [letter from R. Kirk Askew, Jr., Durlacher Brothers, to Robert Harshe, November 29, 1935, Art Institute Archives]; sold to the Art Institute, 1935.

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