View of Toledo
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| View of Toledo |
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| El Greco , 1597-1599 |
| Oil on canvas |
| 121.3 x 108.6 cm |
| Metropolitan Museum of Art |
View of Toledo (Spanish: Vista de Toledo ; also: view of Toledo or thunderstorm over Toledo ) is a painting by the painter El Greco . The painter created the landscape painting in the late 1590s, probably from 1597 to 1599. It is executed in oil on canvas and is 121.3 centimeters high and 108.6 centimeters wide. The picture is one of the few landscape paintings that El Greco created. In his later work he dealt with his hometown and also incorporated such landscape elements into other pictures. Today the painting is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City .
description
The picture shows the Spanish city of Toledo under a gloomy stormy sky on a hill overgrown with meadows and trees. The bridge over the Tagus River can be seen in the foreground . El Greco referred to the significant history of the city and the urban planning innovations that took place at that time. He painted a view of the eastern part of the city with the palace, the Alcántara bridge, the castle of San Servando and the bell tower of the cathedral , which is offset to the right . With that he dramatically increased the rise of the city mountain. He also left out the city wall and changed the course of the river in the foreground. The highest building on the right is the Alcázar , the building below it with the arcade floor at the end does not correspond to a real building in Toledo. It was interpreted as a symbolic reference to the many city palaces of rich citizens.
Provenance
The view of Toledo remained in El Greco's possession until his death. After that, the estate passed into the possession of his son Jorge Manuel. The painting remained there until at least 1621. When the picture was sold is not traceable. The next owner was Pedro Salazar de Mendoza in Toledo, who owned the painting in 1629. It was subsequently sold to Pedro Laso de la Vega . It subsequently remained in the family and was brought to Madrid by Pedro Laso de la Vega, where it can be traced back to an inventory in 1639. The painting was then in the Oñate Palace in Madrid in the collection of the Condessa de Añover y Castañeda. The time at which the view of Toledo entered this collection is unknown. Via the agent Ricardo de Madrazo , the painting came into the inventory of the Durand-Ruel art dealer in Paris in 1907 , which sold it to the New York collector Louisine W. Havemeyer in 1909 for 70,000 francs . When she died in 1929, the picture was donated to the Metropolitan Museum of Art .
literature
- José Álvarez Lopera (ed.), El Greco. Identity and Transformation. Crete - Italy - Spain , Thames and Hudson, London 1999, ISBN 88-8118-474-5 .
- Michael Scholz-Hänsel, El Greco 1541–1614 , Taschen, Cologne 2004, ISBN 3-8228-3170-0 .
- Wilfried Seipel (Ed.), El Greco , Skira, Vienna 2001, ISBN 3-85497-022-6 .
- Beat Wismer, Michael Scholz-Hänsel (eds.), El Greco und die Moderne , Hatje Cantz, Ostfildern 2012, ISBN 978-3-7757-3326-7 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Scholz-Hansel, p. 61.
- ↑ Scholz-Hansel, p. 56.
- ↑ Information on metmuseum.org.