Assumption of Mary with Angel Choirs

Assumption of Mary with Angel Choirs, at the Gemäldegalerie Berlin, shows the Virgin ascending to heaven surrounded by choirs of angels—one of the most hierarchically complex compositions in medieval and early Renaissance devotional painting. Sassetta's version draws on the Sienese tradition of the mandorla-enclosed Virgin with its concentric circles of angelic orders. The work's gold ground and hierarchical arrangement of celestial figures place it firmly within the tradition of sacred imagery that the Sienese school maintained more conservatively than the Florentines.

Mary is placed within a mandorla of pure gold, the angel choirs arranged in semicircular formations around her. Each angel is individualized by the color of its wings and its musical instrument or gesture, the egg tempera allowing Sassetta to achieve the fine detail required to differentiate so many small figures across the panel's surface.