The picture was painted for the high altar of the church of Santa Maria dei Frari in Venice, and installed there in 1518. It was exhibited in the gallery of the Academy of Venice between 1817 and 1918, and then returned to the high altar of the Frari, where it remains.
The ambivalence common in Ruskin's later assessments of Titian is apparent in his latter comments on this picture. At Works, 11.380 Ruskin refers to its 'showy masses of commonplace cherubs and merely picturesque men'. At Works, 7.298 it is a 'noble picture' because Titian believed in the Madonna, but one he painted 'because he enjoyed rich masses of red and blue, and faces flushed with sunlight' (and there seems here to be a hint of Reynolds on Bacchus and Ariadne in Discourse Eight). For Ruskin at Works, 20.62 it is one of the few pictures which are truly religious.
Tiziano Vecellio (Titian) c.1490-1576
Assumption c.1516
Oil on panel, 690x360cm
Provenance: Commissioned by the Abbot of the monastery of the Frari, 1516; transferred to Academy for restoration by Lattanzio Querena, 1816; returned to the Frari, December 1919; moved for Titian exhibition, 1935; moved for protection during WW2, 1940; re-returned to the Frari, 1945; treated for worms, 1966; restored by A. Lazzarin in a laboratory set up in the church, 1974
Collection: Chiesa dei Frari, Venice
For a reproduction of this artistic work, please consult: www.abcgallery.com/T/titian/titian16.html