03 — ARTWORK
St. Martin and the Beggar
- MEDIUM
- Oil on canvas, 104 x 60 cm
- TYPE
- Religious
PALETTE
HOVER OR TAP A SWATCH FOR NAME, SHARE AND HEX. SAMPLED FROM THE IMAGE — INDICATIVE, NOT A PIGMENT ANALYSIS.
THIS REPRODUCTION
DOWNLOAD THE FULL FILE ↓
CURRENT LOCATION · National Gallery of Art
- FILE
- 596 × 1050 px · JPEG
COMMENTARY
UNDERLINED TERMS ARE DEFINED IN THE GLOSSARY.
St. Martin and the Beggar c. 1604 Oil on canvasA woven cloth used as a support for painting. The best-quality canvas is made of linen; other materials used are cotton, hemp, and jute. It is now so familiar a material that the word 'canvas' has become almost a synonym for an oil painting, but it was not until around 1500 that it began to rival the wooden panel (which was more expensive and took longer to prepare) as the standard support for movable paintings (the transition came later in Northern Europe than in Italy). Canvas is not suitable for painting on until it has been coated with a ground, which isolates the fabric from the paint; otherwise it will absorb too much paint, only very rough effects will be obtainable, and parts of the fabric may be rotted by the pigments. It must also be made taut on a stretcher or by some other means., 104 x 60 cm National Galleryan upper story, similar to a tribune, running along the side of a building and open on one side to the interior; in a church (basilica) above the side aisles, over the ambulatory (central-plan building) and also over the west end. The gallery was used to keep certain groups of worshippers apart (women, noblemen). of Art, Washington
The painting is from the Mellon Collection. There is a nearly identical larger version of the subject also in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, from the Widener Collection.
OTHER WORKS BY EL GRECO
CITE THIS RECORD — BIBTEX
@online{wga-r5e88f4d7007c60,
author = {Krén, Emil and Marx, Daniel},
title = {St. Martin and the Beggar by GRECO, El},
organization = {{Web Gallery of Art}},
date = {2026-09-13},
url = {https://beta.wga.hu/artists/greco-el-r8ef3afacca162f/st-martin-and-the-beggar-r5e88f4d7007c60},
urldate = {2026-09-13},
langid = {english}
}ACCESSED 2026-09-13. REPLACE THE AUTHOR FIELD WITH THE COMMENTARY AUTHOR WHERE ONE IS NAMED.