Assumption of the Virgin

This carefully developed, highly pictorial study was the modello for a major project, the decoration of the presbytery vault (at left) in the church of Santa Maria delle Vigne (1612). In the resulting fresco, this conventional Assumption became a “Glorification of the Virgin”––an invention of the Counter-Reformation––with the figure of Christ welcoming the Virgin into heaven and two apostles enlarged to add weight to the foreground. Doubtless at the insistence of patrons, this transformation may have distinguished the iconography, but crowded the composition, causing Tavarone’s biographer to warn that the fresco was “overdone” and “should not be considered one of his best pictures.” The drawing exemplifies the artist’s command of perspective, orderliness of construction, and regularity of line. It is one of the finest examples of his draftsmanship, and the museum’s first example of his work.