The Works of Mercy

A young nobleman in gilded armour sits on a white horse and cuts his green cloak in two with his sword. Beside him stands a naked beggar, very tall and very thin, and takes hold of the cloth.

El Greco painted the picture for the chapel of San José in Toledo, founded by a man named Martín. The saint wears the armour of a Spanish gentleman of the painter's own day, and Toledo lies below in the valley. According to his biographer Sulpicius Severus, Martin met the beggar at the gate of Amiens in a hard winter.