Saint Francis and Brother Leo meditating on Death

The present unpublished work is a high quality, reduced studio version of the original composition executed circa 1600-5, in the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. As many as six autograph versions of this popular subject were painted by El Greco. The existence of some twenty-eight versions, replicas, and copies were produced during his lifetime for the churches and convents of Spain, attesting to its status as one of El Greco's most acclaimed representations of Saint Francis (see H. Wethey, El Greco and his School, 1962, II, pp. 124-6; I, pl. 275; and the version sold in these Rooms, Oct. 5, 1995, lot 57 ($115,000)).