The Fable (Spanish - La Fábula) is a 1580 allegorical painting by El Greco, produced early in his Toledan period and now in the Museo del Prado in Madrid.
The light effects and use of colour show the influence of Jacopo Bassano, which the painter had picked up in Italy. It shows a monkey and a rogue flanking a boy blowing on an ember or taper. The central figure was a frequent theme for the artist (he had painted it a few years earlier as El Soplón for example), drawn from a story in Pliny the Elder's Naturalis Historia.
The painting is probably a moralising warning about the consequences of lust, the ember bursting into flame symbolising sexual arousal, and the monkey and the buffoon the ever-present twin dangers of vice and folly.
1580
Oil on canvas
50.5 x 63.6cm
P007657
Image and text courtesy of Wikipedia, 2023
Where you'll find this
Museo Nacional del Prado
Permanent collection