Saint Louis (El Greco) both France and Spain, particularly since no Spanish king was canonised until Ferdinand III of Castile received the honour in 1671. The work was commissioned by Luis de Castilla, the painter's friend and future executor - the saint was also Luis' name saint. For a period the work was in the collection of the château de Chenonceau, before being acquired by its present owner in 1903. A recent restoration has revealed a cityscape in the background, showing Toledo. Saint Louis (El Greco) Saint Louis is a 1592-1595 painting by El Greco, painted during his time in Toledo. It is now
Art of El Greco "odd". The phrase "sunk in eccentricity", often encountered in such texts, in time became his "madness". With the arrival of Romantic sentiments, El Greco's works were examined anew. To French writer Théophile Gautier, El Greco was the precursor of the European Romantic movement in all its craving for the strange and the extreme. French Romantic writers praised his work for the same "extravagance" and "madness" which had disturbed 18th century commentators. During the operation of the Spanish Museum in Paris, El Greco was admired as the ideal romantic hero and all the romantic stereotypes (the gifted, the misunderstood, the marginal,