The Coronation of the Virgin

In December 1577 a fire tore through the Doge's Palace in Venice and destroyed the wall behind the doge's throne in the Great Council hall, taking with it a 14th-century fresco of paradise by Guariento. The Republic opened a competition for the replacement. This long canvas is Tintoretto's first proposal, and he did not win it. The commission went to Veronese and Francesco Bassano, and only after Veronese died in 1588 did Tintoretto get the wall, by then around 70 years old, filling roughly 22 metres of it with the help of his sons and his workshop. What he offered here is lighter and more open than the version that was finally installed. The picture hung in the Bevilacqua palace in Verona until 1797, when it was taken to France among the works requisitioned during the Italian campaign, and it has been in Paris since 1798.