The Immaculate Conception (El Greco, Toledo) to a metropolis like Madrid. However, following a string of legal disputes over what El Greco deemed inadequate pay for his work, the Cretan master failed to achieve King Phillip's approval. Consequently, El Greco remained in Toledo for the rest of his life, where he was well-received by his contemporaries. One such contemporary was the Spanish preacher and poet Hortensio Félix Paravicino, who remarked that, "Crete gave him life and the painter's craft, Toledo a better homeland, where through Death he began to achieve eternal life." Besides the appreciation shown towards El Greco by his contemporaries, he also found success
The Fable (El Greco) The Fable (El Greco) The Fable (Spanish - "La Fábula") is a 1580 allegorical painting by El Greco, produced early in his Toledan period and now in the Museo del Prado in Madrid. The light effects and use of colour show the influence of Jacopo Bassano, which the painter had picked up in Italy. It shows a monkey and a rogue flanking a boy blowing on an ember or taper. The central figure was a frequent theme for the artist (he had painted it a few years earlier as "El Soplón" for example), drawn from a story in Pliny the