Doña María de Aragón Altarpiece

The consensus view is that it consisted of six large canvases and a seventh, now lost. Five of those six canvases are now in the Prado and the sixth is in the National Museum of Art of Romania in Bucharest.

It is recorded as the work of El Greco. Materials recorded for it are oil paint. Recorded constituent parts are Adoration of the Shepherds, The Annunciation, The Baptism of Christ and Baptism of Jesus Christ. The record gives 1596 as its date of establishment or first appearance. Recorded genres are religious painting. It forms part of Colegio de Doña María de Aragón. It is recorded in the collection of Museo del Prado.

In 1596 El Greco undertook to make the altarpiece for the church of the college, a seminary of the Augustinian order. The popular name alludes to María de Córdoba y Aragón, the patron who paid for the works, lady of Queen Anne of Austria and daughter of Don Álvaro de Córdoba, senior knight of Philip II. El Greco was commissioned by the Council of Castile, which had taken charge of the works after the death of Doña María. There are documents that attest that it was to be done in three years and the work was valued at just over sixty-three thousand reales, the highest price he got in his life. However, there are no references to the number of paintings that formed it, nor to the structure of the altarpiece, nor to the subject matter. Ceán Bermúdez, two centuries later, said that the paintings dealt with the cycle of the life of Christ.

• Illustration — Resurrection 1597-1600 275 x 127 cm Museo del Prado (Madrid) • Illustration — Crucifixion 1597-1600 312 x 169 cm Museo del Prado (Madrid) • Illustration — Pentecost 1597-1600 275 x 127 cm Museo del Prado (Madrid) • Illustration — Adoration of Shepherds 1597-1600 364 x 137 cm National Museum of Art of Romania (Bucharest) • Illustration — Annunciation 1597-1600 315 x 174 cm Museo del Prado (Madrid) • Illustration — Baptism of Christ 1597-1600 315 x 144 cm Museo del Prado (Madrid)