Assumption of the Virgin

Nearly 20 years earlier a towering Assumption Titian painted for a Venice church had announced him as the leading painter of the city. By 1535 he was famous across Italy, and a Verona family commissioned him to treat the same subject again for their chapel in the cathedral, a space the sculptor Sansovino had just remodelled. The Virgin rises through the centre of the canvas in a wash of golden light while the apostles crowd below around her empty tomb, some reaching up, some shielding their eyes. It is the older master returning to the picture that had made his name, on a commission far from home. The painting still hangs in the chapel it was made for.