This canvas represents the full body of a bishop from the front, wearing an alb, a rich brocade chasuble and a mitre. He appears in a meditative pose while reading a book, which he holds in his left hand. On his right, he holds the pastoral crozier, which is decorated with a green cloth sleeve, in his right hand. The figure is located in the foreground, in an exterior dominated by a very open landscape. This scene portrays mountains in the background and a long wall in the middleground, to the viewer’s left. At that same level, numerous figures can be seen listening to the talk or preaching of a figure wearing a mitre, probably the same as the main figure in the composition, framed by the wide cloudscape that emphasises his monumentality. The identity of the figure was recognised quite early on as Saint Basil. Nevertheless, the dependence of this representation on the canvas of Saint Ildefonsus painted by El Greco between 1608–13 for the Oballe chapel in the church of San Vicente Mártir in Toledo, now preserved in the royal monastery of El Escorial, would explain the fluctuations in the identification of the saintly bishop. Amongst other reasons, this may be explained by the fact that this important work by the Crete native was not recognised as Saint Ildefonsus until the 20th century. Previously, the saint had been identified as Saint Eugene or even Saint Blaise. However, both the provenance and early references in the painting clearly indicated its identification as Saint Basil the Great. The latter was one of the four fathers of the Greek Church, born in Caesarea in Cappadocia, Asia Minor, in 328, who became a bishop in 370. Although not common in depictions of the saint, the scene in the background illustrates the meeting between the bishop, the emperor Valens and the prefect Modestus before the walls of Caesarea. That was where Basil showed his uncompromising position against the advance of the Arian heresy. It was precisely in the depiction of the landscape with the scene in the background that the painter of this canvas introduced the fundamental variations with respect to El Greco´s composition, the Saint Ildefonsus in El Escorial. The saint is completely loyal to the original, but he has been surrounded by a larger space that has made it possible to include these landscape and narrative references. The pictorial treatment departs from the characteristics of El Greco in his final years, and the modulation of the face or the clothing proves an artistic affiliation close to the naturalist painting of 1630–1660.

Ruiz Gómez, Leticia, El Greco en el Museo Nacional del Prado: catálogo razonado, Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado, 2007, p.250-252