The legend of St. Veronica assumed its present form in the fifteenth century. Veronica was one of the group of pious women who mourned Christ on his way to Golgotha. Upon wiping the perspiration from Jesus’ face with her kerchief, she found his image imprinted upon the cloth.

El Greco lent the painting its expressive and mystical quality through his use of colour and light. He also manipulates different levels of reality, and seems to reverse them. St. Veronica, who is actually the three-dimensional figure of the composition, is rendered in a rather flat style. Indeed, she seems disembodied, dematerialised and dissolved in light. In contrast, El Greco gives the Image of Christ, which is in actuality two-dimensional, a three-dimensional, corporeal appearance. The impression is heightened by yet another contrast: while St. Veronica turns her face away from us, the image of Christ stares directly at us.