At the top, a nude Christ bears a white banner in his left hand, symbolizing triumph over death. His purple robe signifies sacrifice and martyrdom, while his rhomboidal halo echoes the Byzantine tradition. The soldiers that guard the sepulcher appear surprised and confused by the event, except for one who is asleep. The use of scorcio gives these figures a high degree of dynamism. The borders of this work show the canvas´s priming, where the artist tested his colors and removed the overly thick hairs from his brushes. This painting, signed with Greek letters on the lower edge off the canvas, belonged to the main altarpiece - of the church of the School College of María of Aragón, as were other works at the Prado Museum (P00821, P00823, P00825, P03888). A sketch or autograph reduction is in the Art Museum of Saint Louis, Missouri.

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.