Queen Sofia of Spain is in Athens to inaugurate the exhibition “Friends and Patrons of El Greco in Toledo” on Wednesday at the Athens Benaki Museum’s main branch on Koumbari Street, near Kolonaki Square. The exhibition, titled “Domenikos Theotokopoulos between Venice and Rome” , and kicks off on Thursday as part of the worldwide celebrations taking place for the 400th anniversary since the painter’s death and it runs through to March 1, 2015.

The exhibition’s curators – Professor Richard Kagan of Johns Hopkins University and Professor Emeritus of the University of Crete Nikos Hadjinikolaou, who prepared the catalogue – referred to El Greco, or Domenikus Theotokopoulos, and his source of inspiration from a close circle of family members, patrons, collectors and intellectuals who are presented through rare 16th-century documents and a few portraits of clients he or colleagues have painted.

One of the drawcards in the Benaki’s exhibition isn’t a painting but a document El Greco drew up to allow his son Jorge Manuel to draft his will. He signed it with a trembling hand on March 31, 1614, just a few days prior to his death. It was witnessed by two more Greeks of Toledo, Diogenis Paramonaris and Constantine Fokas.

According to Professor Hadjinikolaou, Theotokopoulos “was a 16th-century rationalist. We do not have a single phrase of his on religious issues. What interested him was how to depict the figures in space, not mysticism.”

The display was also presented at the Historic Museum of Crete, titled “Domenikos Theotokopoulos between Venice and Rome” are part of the “Year of El Greco” celebrations taking place in Greece, Spain and other countries around the world.

Along with the exhibit, Benaki Museum will also holst a three-day congress (November 21-23) on “El Greco, to Venice, to Rome, to Toledo,” that will bring together 22 experts on the painter from around the world.