The Assumption of the Virgin

c. 1658/1660

Juan de Valdés Leal

Artist, Spanish, 1622 - 1690

A young woman wearing a white robe and teal-blue cape is held aloft on the shoulders of three floating angels, surrounded by clouds crowded with cherubs above a group of people looking up from below in this vertical painting. All the people have light skin. The woman, Mary, lifts her arms, palms open. Her pink lips are parted, and her brown eyes look up toward light shining through a patch of blue sky from the top left corner of the painting. Her white robe has voluminous, long sleeves and is belted and tied with a strip of cloth. A gold clasp secures her cape, which is rimmed at the neck with gold. Her long, blond hair and her cape swirl around her. Above her, in the top right corner, four winged faces with round, chubby cheeks and tousled hair look around the scene. Other winged angels are faintly outlined in a coral-pink cluster in the white clouds beyond the woman. One of these angels strums the strings of a harp. The sky around them swirls with patches of hazy of sapphire and celestial blue mixed with wispy, white clouds. Three winged angels support Mary’s legs with their arms intertwined. The angels have chin-length, wavy blond hair and they wear robes in rose pink, mint, or moss green. Their hair and drapery flutters as if in a breeze as they look down onto the crowd of people below. In the lower right corner and closest to us, a balding man with a gray beard and hair is shown from about the waist up, facing away from us. He wears a dark blue robe with mustard-brown fabric draped over his left elbow and across his back. He looks up at Mary with his right hand raised to shield his eyes. He reaches down with his left hand to touch a book on a brown rock beside him. A slip of paper under the book reads, “BALDSLEA,” with the “BAL” intertwined as a monogram. Just beyond him to our right, a young woman with long, curly brown hair clutches her breast as she stares up. Beyond this pair, a group of people robed in muted pastel yellow, green, blue, or pink, gather around a white stone box, a tomb. On the side of the tomb facing us, a sculpted frieze shows a child-like cherub among stylized waves and swirls. To our left, two bearded men stand looking at the people leaning over and gathered near the tomb. The man closer to us gestures with his left hand and holds a large book or tablet tucked along his right side. The head of a third man, white-bearded and stooped, appears behind them. The scene is loosely painted so some details are indistinct, especially in the group gathered around the tomb and the onlookers below.

Media Options

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The mystery of Mary's physical ascent into heaven was a favorite theme during the Counter-Reformation, when the Catholic church was reaffirming its devotion to the Virgin. In its sensuous beauty and dramatic appeal, Juan de Valdés Leal's depiction characterizes the baroque style at its most operatic.

Amidst spiraling forms, swirling draperies, and extravagant gestures, the figure of Mary, arms outstretched, is borne aloft on the wings of a robust group of angels, while a choir of less corporeal angels makes music in the background. The excitement of the supernatural event is sustained by the varied poses and dramatic gestures of the animated figures gathered around the tomb below. Saint Paul, closest to us, shields his eyes against the radiant light.

Utilizing a popular device of baroque painting, Valdés Leal placed the monumental figures of two of the apostles in the foreground to lead the eye into the composition and to establish a sense of scale. In this instance, their position also serves to create the impression that, like the viewer, they have just come upon the scene from a point outside the picture space.

Renowned for his vivacious brushwork, Valdés Leal was also a superb colorist, whose pale but vibrant palette anticipated the decorative tones of the rococo style of the eighteenth century.

More information on this painting can be found in the Gallery publication Spanish Paintings of the Fifteenth through Nineteenth Centuries, which is available as a free PDF https://www.nga.gov/content/dam/ngaweb/research/publications/pdfs/spanish-painting-15th-19th-centuries.pdf

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on canvas

  • Credit Line

    Samuel H. Kress Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall: 215.1 x 156.3 cm (84 11/16 x 61 9/16 in.)

  • Accession

    1961.9.46

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Removed to Alcázar, Seville in 1810, following French occupation of the city.[1] Marquise de Landolfo Carcano [1872-1912], Paris; (her sale, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, 30 May-1 June 1912, no. 174); Dr. Carvalho,[2] Château Villandry, near Tours. (Rosenberg & Stiebel, New York), after 1950;[3] sold 8 February 1955 to The Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[4] gift 1961 to NGA.
[1] Manuel Gómez Imaz, Inventario de los cuadros sustraídos por el Gobierno intruso en Sevilla año de 1810, (Seville, 1896), 72, lists a painting of this subject measuring 2 1/2 varas high x 2 varas wide, or 250 cm. by 167 cm. As Colin Eisler, Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: European Schools Excluding Italian, (Oxford, 1977), 223, note 11, has pointed out, these dimensions approximately correspond to those of the NGA painting. Paul Lafond, Juan de Valdés Leal (Paris, 1923), 92, identified the painting with one in the Aguado Sale (Paris, March 20-28, 1843)). However, as Eisler 1977, 223, note 12, has stated, the dimensions of this picture (164 x 111 cm.) differ significantly from those of the NGA painting, although the description corresponds closely.
[2] Annotated sale catalogue in NGA library, although in some publications "Carvalho" is spelled "Carvallo".
[3] Benedicto Nieto, La Asunción de la Virgen en al arte (Madrid, 1950), 158: "La Acunción de la Virgen de la Colección Carvalho del Château Villandry".
[4] Copy of 8 February 1955 bill from Rosenberg & Stiebel, NGA curatorial files. See also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/2076.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1913

  • Grafton Galleries, London, 1913-1914, no. 102, pl. 48.

1925

  • Exposition d'Art Espagnol, Hôtel Charpentier, Paris, 1925, no. 100.

1982

  • Painting in Spain 1650-1700, The Art Museum, Princeton University; The Detroit Institute of Arts, 1982, 106-108, no. 43, pl. 43.

1991

  • Valdes Leal, Museo de Bellas Artes, Seville, Spain; Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain, 1991, no. 60, repro. 199.

Bibliography

1911

  • Beruete y Moret, Aureliano. Valdés Leal: Estudio critico. Madrid, 1911.

1914

  • Beruete y Moret, Aureliano. "Une Exposition d'anciens maîtres espagnols à Londres." Revue de l'Art Ancien et Moderne 35 (1914): 73, repro. 71.

1916

  • Gestoso y Pérez, José. Biografía del pintor sevillano, Juan de Valdés Leal. Seville, 1916: 208.

1923

  • Lafond, Paul. Juan de Valdés Leal. Paris, 1923: 92-93.

1926

  • Benesch, Otto. "Seicentostudien." Jahrbuch der kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses (Jahrbuch der kunsthistorischen Sammlungen in Wien) n.s., 1 (1926): 259-268. Reprinted in Collected Writings. 2 vols. New York, 1971: 2:174-180.

  • Milward, Jo. "The Carvalho Collection of Spanish Art." International Studio 84 (August, 1926): 13-24, 92, repro. 21.

1939

  • Mather, Frank J. Western European Paintings of the Renaissance. New York, 1939: 661.

1942

  • Mayer, August L. Historia de la pintura española. Madrid, 1942: 374.

1950

  • Nieto, Benedicto. La Asunción de la Virgen en el arte. Madrid, 1950: 158.

1956

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection Acquired by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation 1951-56. Introduction by John Walker, text by William E. Suida and Fern Rusk Shapley. National Gallery of Art. Washington, 1956: 188, no. 74, repro.

1959

  • Kubler, George, and Martin Soria. Art and Architecture in Spain and Portugal and Their American Dominions 1500-1800. Baltimore, 1959: 294.

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 273, repro.

1960

  • Evans, Grose. Spanish Painting in the National Gallery of Art. Washington, D.C., 1960 (Booklet Number Ten in Ten Schools of Painting in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.): 34, color repro.

  • Trapier, Elizabeth Du Gué. Valdés Leal: Spanish Baroque Painter. New York, 1960: 48.

1962

  • Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds., Treasures from the National Gallery of Art, New York, 1962: 88, color repro.

1963

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. New York, 1963 (reprinted 1964 in French, German, and Spanish): 309, repro.

1965

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 134.

1966

  • Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. A Pageant of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. 2 vols. New York, 1966: 1:214, color repro.

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 121, repro.

1971

  • Angulo Iñiguez, Diego. Pintura del siglo XVII. Ars Hispaniae 15. Madrid, 1971: 383.

1975

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 358, repro.

1977

  • Eisler, Colin. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: European Schools Excluding Italian. Oxford, 1977: 222-223, fig. 217.

1978

  • Kinkead, Duncan T. Juan de Valdés Leal (1622-1690): His Life and Work. London and New York, 1978: 185-186, 420-422, no. 101, fig. 89.

1984

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 247, no 310, color repro.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 417, repro.

1988

  • Valdivieso, Enrique. Juan de Valdés Leal. Seville, 1988: 145, 252, no. 122, pl. 113.

1990

  • Brown, Jonathan, and Richard G. Mann. Spanish Paintings of the Fifteenth through Nineteenth Centuries. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1990: 112-115, color repro. 113.

1991

  • Valdes Leal. Exh. cat. Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain, 1991: no. 60, 198, repro. 199.

1992

  • National Gallery of Art, Washington. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 88, repro. (not in 1995 rev. ed.).

Inscriptions

lower center, beneath hand of Saint Peter: BALDS LEA (BAL in ligature)

Wikidata ID

Q20177464

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