While St. Martin of Tours was still a pagan soldier, he met a scantily dressed beggar and gave him half of his own cloak. In a dream that night, Christ appeared to St. Martin wearing the half-cloak, and said to angels: “Here is Martin, the Roman soldier who is not baptized; he has clad me.”
In this painting, St. Martin is clad in gold damascened armor with a ruff typical of fashionable Toledan dress in El Greco's day. Interestingly, St. Martin and the beggar do not make eye contact, nor do they look at the cloak. Rather, they both seem pensive. The saint’s slight smile and distracted expression provoke the viewer to wonder at the source of his charity and the subtle grace of conversion.
