Opening of the Fifth Seal
The Opening of the Fifth Seal (or The Fifth Seal of the Apocalypse or The Vision of Saint John) was painted in the last years of El Greco's life for a side-altar of the church of Saint John the Baptist outside the walls of Toledo. Before 1908, El Greco's painting had been referred to as Profane Love. The scholar Manuel B. Cossio had doubts about the title and suggested the Opening of the Fifth Seal.[1] The Metropolitan Museum, where the painting is kept, comments: "the picture is unfinished and much damaged and abraded."[2]
The Opening of the Fifth Seal
1608–1614
oil on canvas
224.8 cm × 199.4 cm (88.5 in × 78.5 in)
Ownership[edit]
Upon El Greco's death in 1614, the work passed to his son, Jorge Manuel Theotocópuli.[2] During the 19th century, it was owned by Antonio Cánovas del Castillo, Prime Minister of Spain. Dissatisfied with the condition of the piece, he attempted to have it restored in 1880. The attempted restoration removed at least 175 centimetres (69 inches) from the top of the canvas, leaving John the Evangelist emphatically pointing nowhere.
After Cánovas' death in 1897, the painting was sold for 1,000 pesetas (US$200) to Ignacio Zuloaga, a painter who was instrumental in reviving European interest in El Greco. The painting may be seen in the background of his work Mis amigos, representing several notable members of the Generation of '98. Zuloaga is known to have shown the painting to Pablo Picasso and Rainer Maria Rilke. He declared it as possessing a "visionary power" that made it a "precursor of modernism".[4] In 1956, the Zuloaga Museum sold this artwork to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, where it is on exhibit today.