The Holy Trinity
The original, as its museum records it
Every line above is reproduced from the holding institution’s own catalogue entry, which is linked. Where their title, date or attribution differs from ours, theirs is the one printed here.
The file this print is made from
Sizes
About this painting
God the Father takes the Virgin's posture. El Greco's source, a Dürer composition, fuses two medieval iconographies: the Compassio Patris, the Father holding the dead body of Jesus, and the Throne of Grace. The Prado reads the result as "a sort of male Pietà." The doctrine is staged as a bereavement, the mother removed.
Angels grieve; the Father's face stays composed. The body is cadaverous, earth-brown, a corpse given Michelangelo's heroic muscle against a golden sky.
This canvas topped the attic storey at Santo Domingo el Antiguo. The Virgin was one storey below, floating up on her crescent moon.
Sources: Museo Nacional del Prado, official object page for The Holy Trinity (P000824) · Museo Nacional del Prado, 'easy-to-read' companion object page for The Holy Trinity · Web Gallery of Art, 'The Santo Domingo el Antiguo Altarpieces (1577-79)' · Museo Nacional del Prado, exhibition, 'El Greco: Santo Domingo el Antiguo'. · The Art Institute of Chicago, El Greco, 'The Assumption of the Virgin', 1577-79.
Printed on demand. Public-domain masterwork, reproduced from a 3,051 px master of the original. The whole image is printed — never cropped to fit the sheet — so every sheet carries an archival margin, and the dimensions and resolution listed above are the ones you receive.