El Greco case, Philip's dissatisfaction ended any hopes of royal patronage El Greco may have had. Lacking the favor of the king, El Greco was obliged to remain in Toledo, where he had been received in 1577 as a great painter. According to Hortensio Félix Paravicino, a 17th-century Spanish preacher and poet, "Crete gave him life and the painter's craft, Toledo a better homeland, where through Death he began to achieve eternal life." In 1585, he appears to have hired an assistant, Italian painter Francisco Preboste, and to have established a workshop capable of producing altar frames and statues as well as
El Greco Apartments was raised to pay for the cost of the land and refurbishment of the building. Among other efforts, Leonard Nimoy (Spock in the 1960s television series "") staged a fund-raiser for the effort to preserve the El Greco. In September 1985, the El Greco was carefully carved into four pieces and hauled from its original site in Westwood to its new location in the Beverly-Fairfax district. Architect Peter de Bretteville, who was in charge of the move and refurbishment, noted: "The difficult relocation was accomplished by dividing the apartment into four separate sections, preserving all of the structure's Spanish roof