The brother of Antonio de Covarrubias. Both men were the sons of one of the most famous architects of the Spanish Renaissance, Alonso de Covarrubias. The painter seems unlikely to have met the bishop as he died the same year that El Greco arrived in Toledo. To paint this posthumous portrait, he must have used the one painted by Alonso Sánchez Coello while he was still alive, and also housed in this Museum.