The composition of the painting has been closely related to the Byzantine iconography of the Dormition of the Mother of God. The argumentation supporting this point of view focuses on the icon of the "Dormition" by El Greco that was discovered in 1983 in the church of the same name in Syros. Robert Byron, according to whom the iconographic type of the "Dormition" was the compositional model for "The Burial of the Count of Orgaz", asserts that El Greco as a genuine Byzantine painter worked throughout his life with a repertoire of components and motifs at will, depending on the narrative and expressive requirements of the art.