This work depicts the moment when the Holy Ghost, in the form of flames, rests on the Virgin and the Apostles on Pentecost day in Jerusalem, as is told in the book of Acts (2: 1-5). The bald, bearded Apostle who looks out at the viewer from the right of the canvas has been identified as a self-portrait, or as a portrait of the artist´s friend, Antonio de Covarrubias. Along with other paintings in the Prado Museum (P00821, P00823, P00825, P03888), this work was painted as part of the main altarpiece for the church of the Augustine College of María de Aragón in Madrid. A sketch or autograph reduction can be found in the Zogheb collection in Paris. The signature is on the second step, in Greek letters. It was redone during an old restoration.

In 1596 El Greco was commissioned to paint the high altar of the Colegio de la Encarnación (Madrid), an Augustinian seminary better known by the name of its founder, Doña María de Córdoba y Aragón (1539-1593).

The central part of the bottom section of the altarpiece featured The Annunciation, which had the Adoration of the Shepherd (now in Bucharest) an the Baptism of Christ on either side of it, scenes of the Resurrection and of Pentecost. With the exception of Pentecost, each of these subjects had been painted previously by El Greco, some of them during his Italian period, However, here they are taken up again from a perspective that is particularly original; a perspective that is particularly original; a perspective that is steeped in a more “expressionist” spirituality, and which from 1600 became even more personal and disconcerting, intentionally distanced from contemporary painting.

El Greco painted the scenes in small spaces, emphasizing the vertical format, and bathing them in a ghostly light that enhances the unreality of the figures, which are arranged in a very marked foreshortening and have very expressive features. The colours-cold, intense and contrasting- are applied very loosely over powerful anatomical constructions, and are perfect examples of El Greco’ s highly personal style in the final stretch of his career.