Saint Ildefonso
A light-skinned man wearing a voluminous, ocean-blue, hooded robe sits at a cloth-draped writing table and looks up, fingers splayed over an open book and a pen held in his other hand, in this vertical painting. The man and desk take up most of the composition, which has an arched top. The man’s shoulders and body are angled to our right, and he looks off in that direction in profile. His balding head is rimmed with white hair curving over the large ear we can see, and he has a trimmed white and gray beard and mustache. His prominent nose is pointed, and his lips are closed. Light glints off the robe he wears so it shimmers in shades of topaz, aquamarine, and midnight blue. Voluminous white sleeves emerge under the mantle and are edged with narrow lace cuffs. His left hand, to our right, rests on an open book, which is propped against one or two other tomes. Near the edge of the table, two quills stand in the corners of a lidded inkwell, and a round, silver blotter, shaped like an upside-down chalice, and a lidded silver box sit nearby. The man’s chair has a tall post next to his shoulder to our left with a teardrop-shaped, gold finial. A second post, near his wrist, is lower and topped with a gold orb. The chair is draped in the same deep, raspberry-pink of the square table at which he sits. The tablecloth is edged with a wide band of gold along the bottom, and filigree-like gold decorations line the seams or folds at the corners. Brushstrokes are visible in many areas, especially in the colorfully charged blue and pink fabric. Beyond the man, to our right, a statuette of a person wearing a long, white robe over a white dress holds a baby. The clothing is edged with gold, and she wears a sphere-like gold crown. The baby also wears white and holds up one hand. The statuette stands on a platform supported by S-shaped corbels, and could have a projecting, squared awning over the top. This area is more loosely painted so some details are difficult to make out. In the background to our left, a wooden door stands open next to a dark space just behind the man’s head, so his profile is picked out against the shadow. The floor beneath is earth brown.
Details
- Palette
-
Select a color to find related artworks.
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- overall: 112 x 65.8 cm (44 1/8 x 25 7/8 in.) framed: 135.4 x 89.9 x 6.7 cm (53 5/16 x 35 3/8 x 2 5/8 in.)
- Department
- CIS-B
- Holding institution
- National Gallery of Art
- Image provider
- national-gallery-of-art
- License
- CC0-1.0
- Credit
- Andrew W. Mellon Collection
Art Genome Taxonomy
8 tags
Subject Matter
-
Saints Both · 100%
The title identifies the subject as Saint Ildefonso, and the image shows a religious figure engaged in writing before a devotional image.
-
Interiors Visual · 98%
An open wooden door, dark recess, writing table, chair, and shrine-like architectural surround establish an enclosed interior setting.
Visual Qualities
-
Dark Colors Visual · 98%
Deep black, brown, midnight blue, saturated raspberry, and muted gold dominate the scene, with illumination concentrated in selected areas.
-
Dense Composition Visual · 93%
The seated figure, writing table, open book, chair, architectural recesses, and devotional sculpture fill most of the tall composition.
-
Highly Detailed Visual · 90%
The painting includes finely rendered and highly articulated details in the lace cuffs, embroidered textiles, quills, inkwells, silver objects, book, chair finials, and gilded devotional structure.
Medium and Techniques
-
Oil Painting Metadata · 100%
The catalog specifies oil on canvas.
-
Chiaroscuro Visual · 95%
Localized illumination models the face, hands, robe, book, tablecloth, and devotional sculpture against a predominantly shadowed setting.
Time Periods
-
17th Century Art Metadata · 100%
The work is explicitly dated c. 1603/1614, placing it in the seventeenth century.
Source & rights
El Greco (Domenikos Theotokopoulos). Saint Ildefonso. Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington.