Christ risen from the tabernacle

This Christ forms part of the sculptural programme that El Greco devised for the tabernacle that Pedro Salazar de Mendoza, the administrator of the Hospital de San Juan Bautista in Toledo (commonly known as Tavera), commissioned from him in 1595. Of this programme, which included, in addition to this piece, four Doctors of the Church and twelve figures of the apostles, El Greco only managed to carve the first five, and only the present Risen Christ has survived. The imposition of the Chasuble on Saint Ildefonso which he made for the altarpiece of the Plunder in Toledo Cathedral are the only two documented sculptures by the Cretan. The figure of the Risen Christ is very similar in pose and design to that of the altarpiece of the same date or slightly later in the College of the Incarnationnow in the Museo del Prado (P000825) and crowned the tabernacle or "custodia girl"inside the tabernacle. On the occasion of the centenary of El Greco in 2014, this Christ, restored by Sonia Tortajada in the workshops of the Museo del Prado, was reintegrated into the tabernacle, which had been restored by Javier Barbasán Camacho, restorer at the Fundación Casa Ducal de Medinaceli.