The Immaculate Conception

The Immaculate Conception, painted in 1767-69 and now at the Museo del Prado, was one of Tiepolo's final works and one of his most doctrinally charged. Commissioned for the church of San Pascual at Aranjuez — the royal monastery outside Madrid — this altarpiece was among seven paintings Tiepolo executed for the church before his death in 1770. The Prado version, showing the Virgin elevated above the world in a burst of celestial light, represents the formal declaration of the Immaculate Conception as defined Catholic doctrine that the papacy had been moving toward throughout the eighteenth century. Shortly after Tiepolo's death, his Aranjuez altarpieces were replaced by works in the Neoclassical style of Francisco Bayeu and Mariano Salvador Maella — a posthumous rejection that his admirers found deeply unjust.

Tiepolo's luminous palette of azure, white, and rose creates a vision of celestial beauty characteristic of his late devotional paintings. The ascending Virgin is surrounded by angels and clouds rendered with the fluid, light-filled technique that represents the culmination of the Venetian coloristic tradition.