Asunción de la Magdalena, by José de Ribera

Ribera's Assumption of the Magdalene from 1636 in the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Madrid, depicts Mary Magdalene being raised to heaven at the end of her life — a vision of the penitent who was transported by angels to receive Communion each day during her years of desert hermitage. The Magdalene's Assumption was a popular subject in Spanish devotional painting, offering painters the dramatic resources of the supernatural elevation (flying angels, the ascending figure) combined with the spiritual history of the penitent sinner transformed by divine grace. Ribera's treatment combined his characteristic dramatic lighting with the softer atmospheric quality he developed in his later career.

The composition creates a dramatic upward movement as angels lift the ecstatic Magdalene heavenward. Ribera's warm palette and softer brushwork in this late period create a more luminous atmosphere than his earlier, darker works.