…a ‘mistake’ that helped me to deciphere a pattern in two El Greco’s paintings…

Saint Martin and the Beggar and Madonna and Child with Saint Martina and Saint Agnes are painted on a support canvas with a complex pattern.

Analyses of the X-ray images of both paintings show that the pattern of the canvases are identical.

Both canvases show a ‘mistake’ in the same spot!

The ‘mistake’ that shows up in the xray of the textile is the result of the fact that the first treadle of the loom has shaft six attached: this shaft should not be lifted in that weft pass.

It helped me to be more secure of the reconstruction of the pattern and to write the weave draft.

Another intersting aspect is that the weave draft is the same as for the support canvas of El Greco’s The Burial of the Count of Orgaz and Alonso Sánchez Coello’s Infanta Isabel and Magdalena Ruiz but the above mentioned ‘mistake’ does not appear in these canvases.

El Greco Saint Martin and the Beggar 1597-99
National Gallery of Art Washington
X-ray image of the canvas of El Greco’s Saint Martin and the Beggar 1597-99
Courtesy National gallery of Art Washington
weave draft of the pattern of
El Greco’s Saint Martin and the Beggar
weave draft of El Greco’s Madonna and Child with Saint Martina and Saint Agnes 1597 -99

El Greco, Madonna and Child with Saint Martina and Saint Agnes, 1597-99
National Gallery of Art Washington

Another intersting aspect is that the weave draft is the same as for the support canvas of El Greco’s The Burial of the Count of Orgaz and Alonso Sánchez Coello’s Infanta Isabel and Magdalena Ruiz but the above mentioned ‘mistake’ does not appear in these canvases.
Another intersting aspect is that the weave draft is the same as for the support canvas of El Greco’s The Burial of the Count of Orgaz and Alonso Sánchez Coello’s Infanta Isabel and Magdalena Ruiz but the above mentioned ‘mistake’ does not appear in these canvases.