Saint Martin and the Beggar
Greek 16th Century El Greco (workshop)
A nearly nude man with peachy skin stands next to and looks up at a man with ashen, ivory-colored skin, wearing armor and riding a bright white horse in this vertical painting. The horizon line comes less than a quarter of the way up the composition, and the sky behind the men and horse is vivid, aqua blue with a few silvery-gray and pale, yellow clouds floating along the top edge of the composition. The painting is created with long, blended brushstrokes, and the limbs and features of the two men and horse are elongated and have delicate, dark outlines. The horse’s body is angled to our right but it looks at us from the corners of its dark eyes. One front leg is raised. The rider looks down toward the man on foot at his side, to our left. The rider has dark, arched eyebrows, a long, straight nose, a pointed chin, and short, copper-orange hair. Wide ruffs pleated into figure-eights encircle his neck and wrists. His chest and arms are covered with plates of steel-gray armor edged and decorated with gold bands and medallions. He wears crimson-red pantaloons and stockings with mustard-yellow boots. With his right hand, to our left, he holds the gold hilt of a long, thin sword along the horse’s body. With his other hand, he holds a swath of lime-green fabric, which drapes down the side of the horse and across the hips of the man standing next to the rider. The sheen of the fabric is suggested with canary-yellow highlights where it catches the light. The standing man has short, dark brown hair and eyebrows. He looks to our right in profile, toward the rider, with pink lips parted. He holds the green fabric with his left hand, to our right, and he has a bandage around his leg near his right ankle. The horse and man stand on a spit of dark brown land, with a landscape of trees, buildings, and mountains deep in the distance beyond.
Details
- Palette
-
Select a color to find related artworks.
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- overall (original painted surface): 99.5 x 55 cm (39 3/16 x 21 5/8 in.) overall (with extensions on all four sides): 104.3 x 60.3 cm (41 1/16 x 23 3/4 in.) framed: 124.5 x 81 x 6.4 cm (49 x 31 7/8 x 2 1/2 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
12 tags
Subject Matter
-
Human Figure Visual · 100%
Two prominent human figures occupy the foreground: an armored mounted rider and a nearly nude standing man.
-
Saints Metadata · 100%
The title identifies the mounted figure as Saint Martin, making a saint the central subject of the depicted narrative.
-
Equestrian Both · 100%
A mounted rider on horseback is clearly described in the catalog and prominently visible in the image.
-
Animals Visual · 100%
A large white horse with harness, bridle, and a raised foreleg occupies much of the composition.
-
Nude Both · 100%
The catalog describes the standing man as nearly nude, a condition clearly visible in the image.
-
Landscapes Both · 96%
A distant terrain of mountains, vegetation, and buildings appears below the sky and behind the foreground figures.
Styles and Movements
-
Mannerism Both · 80%
The elongated bodies, expressive contours, heightened color, and attribution to the Workshop of El Greco support a cautious Mannerist classification.
Visual Qualities
-
Bright and Vivid Colors Visual · 96%
The composition uses strongly saturated turquoise-blue, green, crimson, white, and gold tones across the sky, cloth, clothing, armor, and horse.
-
Dense Composition Visual · 90%
The large horse, rider, and standing man overlap tightly within the tall canvas, producing a crowded, compressed foreground arrangement.
Medium and Techniques
-
Oil Painting Metadata · 100%
National Gallery of Art metadata specifies oil on canvas.
Time Periods
-
17th Century Art Metadata · 95%
The catalog dates the work 1600/1614, placing it in the seventeenth century.
Cultural and Religious Styles
-
Christian Art and Architecture Metadata · 98%
The title identifies a Christian saint and a charitable biblical-Christian narrative, supporting a Christian subject classification.
Source & rights
Workshop of El Greco (Domenikos Theotokopoulos). Saint Martin and the Beggar. Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington.