This temporary display marks the exceptional loan of El Greco’s altarpiece, The Crucifixion with Two Donors, from the Musée du Louvre, Paris, alongside which the National Gallery’s holdings of El Greco’s works have been brought together. An additional painting, The Agony in the Garden, related to the Gallery’s own studio variant shown nearby, is on loan from a private collection and exhibited publicly here for the first time in 25 years.
Through the six paintings on display, we can follow El Greco’s stylistic evolution and appreciate the full range of works he produced; from small-scale paintings aimed at a learned public (The Adoration of the Name of Jesus) to works intended for private devotion (Christ Driving the Traders from the Temple and The Agony in the Garden of Gethsemane) or the great altarpieces destined for religious settings ('The Crucifixion with Two Donors').
The Louvre's magnificent altarpiece displays the extraordinary drama associated with some of El Greco’s greatest works, such as 'The Burial of the Count of Orgaz' (1586–8) in Santo Tomé, Toledo, with which it is almost contemporary.
Learn more about the paintings in the display:
