The Virgin Mary in Glory

Jan Provoost's Virgin Mary in Glory belongs to the Bruges master's devotional production for Flemish patrons who desired images affirming Mary's celestial queenship. The Assumption and Coronation of the Virgin were subjects particularly favored in the late medieval and early Renaissance period when Marian devotion was at its height, and Provoost's version presents the Virgin surrounded by angels in the traditional aureole of heavenly light. His Flemish training under Gerard David and Jacob van Lathem gave him the technical foundation for richly colored devotional works that balanced tradition with the formal innovations of the early sixteenth century.

The glorified Virgin is presented in a heavenly setting with attendant figures. Provoost's refined Bruges technique creates a luminous devotional image with characteristic attention to surface detail.