This bust-length portrait entered the royal collections as a donation by the widow of the Duke of Arco, gentlemanin- waiting, Equerry and Master of the Horse to Philip V. In his recreational estate at El Pardo, De Arco possessed a group of six portraits of gentlemen by El Greco whose provenance is now unknown.This group would come to constitute the principal holdings of portraits by the artist now in the Museo del Prado.The present canvas is one of the earliest works by El Greco painted in Spain, and the most distinctive of the six.The sitter, who is aged around 30, is dressed according to Spanish fashion of the late 1570s, with a narrow, white ruff that reaches up behind his ears and frames his head. Standing out against his tight-fitting, black silk doublet are his right hand, resting on his breast, and the gilded hilt of his sword.The way that the left arm is bent suggests the he is holding and presenting the sheathed weapon with his left hand, which is invisible to the viewer.The figure is outlined against a plain background of a pearly grey tone modulated by the reddish-brown of the preparatory layer beneath, which is visible on the surface. Thanks to the fact that it was displayed at an early date in the Museo del Prado, the painting became one of El Greco’s most celebrated works. The inclusion of the costly sword, the solemn and rhetorical gesture of the right hand, which is not common in secular works by the artist although fairly frequent in his religious compositions, the half-hidden medallion that he wears and above all, the direct relationship established between sitter and viewer, have made this figure an iconic image of the Castilian and by extension the Spanish knight.The enormous interest that the painting has aroused in art and literature explains the wide variety of resulting interpretations and identifications, although all of these focus on the sitter’s status as a quintessential Spanish aristocrat, resulting in the somewhat clichéd opinions that have accompanied the painting throughout most of the 20th century in which the sitter is seen as a knightly Christian, melancholy and austere, and a haughty representative of his class and time. At one point it was thought that the painting could be a self-portrait as the gesture of the hand was taken to be a proud statement of self-affirmation by El Greco. Specific names have been proposed for the sitter, including Miguel de Cervantes and Philip II’s secretary Antonio Pérez. Without doubt, the most convincing suggestion has connected this figure with the Second Marquis of Montemayor, Juan de Silva y de Ribera, a contemporary of El Greco who was appointed military commander of the Alcázar in Toledo by Philip II and Chief Notary to the Crown, a position that would explain the solemn gesture of the hand, depicted in the act of taking an oath. Whatever the case, Portrait of a Gentleman with his Hand on his Breast is an excellent example of portraiture of its date, with formal parallels to be found in the type of court portrait introduced by the Habsburgs with their notably simple depictions of the sitters, represented frontally and strongly illuminated against a plain background. Comparable examples are also to be found in Italian Renaissance painting, particularly of the Venetian school, with which El Greco’s technique and composition can most aptly be associated. Such parallels include the gesture of the hand, which is a rhetorical device of great expressivity that helps to convey the sitter’s inner character and which is also to be found in other Venetian and Central European portraits. With or without these parallels, El Greco was fully able to imbue this portrait with a remarkable formal tension between the visible and the hidden.

Ruiz, Leticia, "El caballero de la mano en el pecho", en: El retrato del Renacimiento, Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado, 2008, p.326-327