The Assumption of the Virgin

probably mid 1620s

A woman, Mary, floats in the sky surrounded by eleven winged angels above fifteen men and women gathered around an open, stone coffin in this vertical painting. All the people have pale, peachy skin. Near the top center of the composition, the woman’s torso twists to our left as her knees turn to our right. She lifts her left hand, to our right, to her chest and her other arm reaches down along her body. She looks up with dark eyes, her head tipped slightly back. She has a round face, a small nose, flushed cheeks, and a heart-shaped, rose-pink mouth. Her long, golden-brown hair falls over the shoulders of her scoop-necked, powder-blue dress. A honey-brown wrap loops over one shoulder and billows up to surround her head and shoulders. A voluminous silver cloth edged with gold flows around her hips, legs, and feet. Seven of the angels gathered near Mary’s feet and legs are baby-like, pudgy children with gossamer-white or smoke-gray wings. Most of these angels are nude but the genitals of two are covered in ivory or golden yellow cloths. Four taller, so presumably older, angels float around Mary’s head and shoulders with two to each side. Two angels to our left, wearing petal pink or butterscotch yellow, hold a ring of leaves up toward her head. The angels to our right wear ruby red or bronze gold, and they look toward Mary with their arms crossed over their chests. The hair and drapery of all of the angels flutter as if in a breeze. Below this group, on the dirt earth, twelve men and three women gather around an open stone coffin set in front of an arched opening leading into a hillside. Some in the group look into the coffin, some look up, and some look toward a man standing to our left. That man has long, chestnut-brown hair and wears a red robe over a white tunic. He looks up at Mary with his head tipped back and raises both hands high, palms facing the scene in the sky. The three women are closest to the coffin, which sits on a two-stepped platform. The woman closest to us kneels on the steps wearing a golden yellow dress. Her white-blond hair has been pulled up and braided. She pulls a pale gray or white cloth from the coffin and holds what could be a small bunch of flowers or leaves in one hand. The other two women have brown hair and stand on the far side of the coffin. Some of the men have beards, and they wear robes in cardinal red, olive green, honey yellow, and tan. A sliver of landscape with water, trees, and a hill is visible in the deep distance to our left, and the sky above is filled with slate-blue clouds. A darker bank of charcoal-gray clouds sweeps around the group in the sky to our right, and bright, yellow rays emanate down from the top center. The scene is loosely painted, especially in the clothing, to create the impression of a sheen on the fabrics.

Media Options

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In 1626, Peter Paul Rubens executed one of the most important religious commissions of his career: the high altarpiece for Antwerp’s Cathedral of Onze-Lieve-Vrouwe in Antwerp. As appropriate for a cathedral dedicated to the Virgin Mary, Appropriately for a cathedral dedicated for the Virgin Mary, Rubens composed an enormous panel glorifying the bodily assumption of the Virgin into heaven. She soars upward with an aureole of putti assisting in her transition to the spiritual realm. Two angels hold a floral wreath aloft, indicating her impending coronation as “Queen of Heaven.” Surrounding the open tomb below are a crowd of bearded patriarchs, apostles, the three Marys, holding the Virgin’s shroud, and Saint John the Evangelist, who reaches upward with outstretched arms during this miraculous event.

The Gallery’s painting is probably a replica of Rubens’s original sketch, which is now in the Mauritshuis, in The Hague. Although it is larger and more carefully executed than the Maurithuis’ sketch, the brushwork is not as vigorous or spontaneous, which suggests that it is an enlarged copy of the latter. This conclusion is reinforced by the emptiness of the upper left and right regions of the Gallery’s painting, where the copyist had no compositional model to follow because of the arched shape of the Mauritshuis sketch. It, thus, seems, most likely that a member of Rubens’s workshop executed the painting, perhaps for a private chapel.

On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 43

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on panel

  • Credit Line

    Samuel H. Kress Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall (image only, without wooden shims): 123.5 x 92 cm (48 5/8 x 36 1/4 in.)
    overall (with wooden shims): 125.4 x 94.4 cm (49 3/8 x 37 3/16 in.)
    framed: 157.5 x 125.7 x 8.3 cm (62 x 49 1/2 x 3 1/4 in.)

  • Accession

    1961.9.32

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

R.P. [possibly Robert P.] Nichols, London, by 1857.[1] Misses Weiss, Langton Castle, Worcestershire, by 1950.[2] (Frederick Mont, Inc., New York); sold January 1952 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[3] gift 1961 to NGA.
[1] Gustav-Friedrich Waagen, Galleries and cabinets of Art in Great Britain: Being an Account of more than Forty Collections of Paintings, Drawings, Sculptures, Mss., &c.&c, forming a supplemental volume to the Treasures of Art in Great Britain, 3 vols., London, 1857: 240.
[2] A Loan Exhibition of Works by Peter Paul Rubens, Kt., notes by Ludwig Burchard, exh. cat., Wildenstein & Co., London, 1950: 2.
[3] The bill of sale from Frederick Mont to the Kress Foundation is dated 30 January 1952 (copy in NGA curatorial files, see also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/2075). The painting is described as being a modello for the altarpiece in the Cathedral of Antwerp, from the collection of Langton Castle, Worcestershire, England.

Associated Names

Bibliography

1857

  • Waagen, Gustav Friedrich. Galleries and Cabinets of Art in Great Britain: Being an Account of more than Forty Collections of Paintings, Drawings, Sculptures, Mss., &c.&c., visited in 1854 and 1856, ..., forming a supplemental volume to the "Treasures of Art in Great Britain." London, 1857: 240, as by one of Rubens' workshop assistants.

1890

  • Rooses, Max. L'Oeuvre de P.P. Rubens: histoire et description de ses tabelaux et dessins. 5 vols. Antwerp, 1896-1892: 2(1888):179.

1950

  • Burchard, Ludwig. A Loan Exhibition of Works by Peter Paul Rubens, Kt.. Exh. cat. Wildenstein & Co., London, 1950: 2.

1953

  • Haverkamp-Begemann, Egbert. Olieverfschetsen van Rubens. Exh. cat. Museum Boymans-van Beuningen. Rotterdam, 1953: 71.

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: 156, no. 60, repro.

1959

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 293, repro.

1965

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 118.

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 105, repro.

1972

  • Baudouin, Frans. "Altars and Altarpieces before 1620." In John Rupert Martin, ed. Rubens before 1620. Princeton, 1972: 71, attribution questioned.

1975

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 314, repro.

1977

  • Eisler, Colin. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: European Schools Excluding Italian. Oxford, 1977: 111-112, no. K1871, fig. 100, as after Rubens.

  • Pope-Hennessy, John. "Completing the Account." Review of Colin Eisler, Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection, London 1977. Times Literary Supplement no. 3,927 (17 June 1977).

1980

  • Held, Julius S. The Oil Sketches of Peter Paul Rubens. A Critical Catalogue. 2 vols. Princeton, 1980: 1:514, as a copy.

1984

  • Freedberg, David. Rubens, the Life of Christ after the Passion (Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard, Part 7). London, Oxford, and New York, 1984: 180-181, no. 43b, repro., fig. 100, as a copy after print by Schelte à Bolswert.

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 252, no. 318, color repro.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 361, repro.

1993

  • Broos, Ben. Intimacies & Intrigues: History Painting in the Mauritshuis. The Hague, 1993: 305, as a copy after print by Schelte à Bolswert.

1997

  • Mittler, Gene A., and Rosalind Ragans. Understanding Art. New York, 1997: fig. 12-4.

1998

  • Apostolos-Cappadona, Diane. "Virgin/Virginity." In Encyclopedia of Comparative Iconography: Themes Depicted in Works of Art. Edited by Helene E. Roberts. 2 vols. Chicago, 1998: 2:905.

2005

  • Wheelock, Arthur K., Jr. Flemish Paintings of the Seventeenth Century. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 2005: 218-222, color repro.

Wikidata ID

Q20177012

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