The Assumption

This 1734 Assumption at the Museum of Fine Arts Budapest depicts the bodily reception of the Virgin Mary into heaven, one of the grandest subjects in Catholic sacred painting. As one of Ricci's final works — he died in Venice in 1734 — this Assumption represents the culmination of a career dedicated largely to decorative religious painting for churches and palaces across Europe. The Museum of Fine Arts Budapest's Italian collection preserves this late masterwork in Central Europe, where it can be seen in the context of the Central European Baroque sacred painting tradition that Ricci had helped shape through his Vienna commissions in the early eighteenth century.

The ascending Virgin is surrounded by clouds and angels in a composition designed to create a sense of upward movement, Ricci's luminous palette and confident figural painting sustaining the dynamism of the celestial subject.