Modena Triptych

This devotional altarpiece, signed by the artist, depicting Adam and Eve before the Eternal Father, the Annunciation, the Baptism of Christ, the Adoration of the Shepherds and the center the view of Mount Sinai and the Allegory of the Christian knight, is one of the best known and meaningful creations of the El Greco's early work. The work came to the Galleria Estense in 1805 from the art collection of the noble Tommaso Obizzi to Catajo.
The small size of this work belongs to the repertoire of the Cretan cabinet , but the entire execution process, the purely painterly use of light and colour indicates a direct contact with the Venetian art and marks the time of posting the artist into the artistic Byzantine influence to assimilate fully the West.
A work by miniature-style, with an interpretation of the plastic bodies, with rounded shapes and a strong sense of colour, a result of the lessons of Venetian painting.
A complex iconography underlies the composition of the triptych, referring to the fall of man because of the original sin. The man, however, will meet salvation with the mystery of Christ, represented in Annunciation and in the Adoration of the Shepherds.

Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

(Museum: Galleria Estense)