L'Assomption

Turino Vanni's L'Assomption (Assumption), painted around 1450 and now in the Musée du Petit Palais in Avignon, depicts the Assumption of the Virgin Mary — her bodily ascent into heaven at the end of her earthly life, a dogma established in medieval theology and central to Marian devotion throughout Catholic Europe. Turino Vanni was a painter active in the Pisan region in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth century, and while the dating of this panel is uncertain, it represents the Pisan-Lucchesian painting tradition that maintained strong connections with the Sienese school while developing its own regional character.

Tempera on panel with gold ground. The Virgin is shown ascending in a mandorla of light or cloud, supported by angels who carry her heavenward. The Apostles below look upward in wonder, sometimes shown gathered around the empty tomb from which the Virgin has risen.