El Greco in his lifetime was highly esteemed as an architect and sculptor. He usually designed complete altar compositions, working as architect and sculptor as well as painter, for instance at the Hospital de la Caridad. There he decorated the chapel of the hospital, but the wooden altar and the sculptures he executed have in all probability perished. For "Espolio" the master designed the original altar of gilded wood which has been destroyed, but his small sculptured group of the "Miracle of St. Ildefonso" still survives on the lower centre of the frame.