Claire Wilson
A FAKE El Greco painting will go on display as part of an exhibition celebrating the 400th anniversary of the painter’s death.
According to an expert, ‘Lady in a Fur Wrap’ is not a portrait of El Greco’s mistress Jeronima de las Cuevas, as many art historians would have it, but rather a depiction of a Jewish girl who lived centuries after El Greco’s death in Toledo in 1614, by an unidentified Spanish painter.
The painting was exhibited 170 years ago in London as ‘The Daughter of El Greco’, but there are no record of him having a daughter
Now owned by the Glasgow Museums and Galleries, the portrait has been seen at the Metropolitan Museum in New York and at the National Gallery in London in 2004, where one curator also doubted its authorship and called for an x-ray using modern dating technology. Glasgow museum authorities have yet to carry it out.
Despite the doubt surrounding the painting, it will still take its place among 100 El Grecos in Toledo in two months.
”I’m surprised experts attributed it to El Greco, given that it is light years away from his style”, said exhibition curator Fernando Marias. ”We will exhibit it anyway – albeit with an advisory – because it is a beautiful painting in its own right, and its history is linked to that of the master”.
