Assumption of the Virgin Mary

Guercino's Assumption of the Virgin Mary, painted around 1623 in oil on canvas, shows the moment when the Virgin rises into heaven, watched from below by the apostles in a composition built on strong upward movement. The figures recall other works by the same painter, such as his St Matthew in Dresden, and the arrangement of the apostles resembles Guido Reni's Assumption of 1617 in Genoa. One notable figure is St John the Evangelist in a red cloak in the foreground; early copies of him survive, one in the Doria Pamphilj Gallery in Rome, which was for a time taken for an oil sketch by Guercino himself. The painting was commissioned by Count Alessandro Tanari and stayed in his family for more than two centuries. In 1841 it was bought for the Hermitage on the orders of Tsar Nicholas I, a loss for Italy that the writer Gaetano Giordani lamented.

Painter

Guercino

Date

1623

Medium

oil paint, canvas

Dimensions

307 × 332 cm

Museum

Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg

Genre

religious art

Depicts

Assumption of Mary

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