Historical Museum of Crete

This guide to the Historical Museum of Crete follows a small wooden panel, the Baptism of Christ, painted by Domenicos Theotocopoulos, the Cretan icon painter who left the island around 1567 and became known abroad as El Greco. It traces his path through Venice and Rome, and how this early panel fuses the gold-lit icons of his apprenticeship with the movement and shadow he had only just encountered. Listen for why it is one of only two of his paintings that ever came back to Crete.