Portrait of a Cardinal (detail)
by GRECO, El, Oil on canvas
His finely wrought features framed by a manicured, greying beard and crimson biretta, the sitter is perched like some magnificent bird of prey in a gold-fringed chair. The round-rimmed glasses confer on his gaze a frightening, hawkish intensity as he examines the viewer with an air of implacable, even cruel detachment.