The Immaculate Conception

In March 1767 King Charles III of Spain commissioned seven altarpieces from Tiepolo for the new church of San Pascual at Aranjuez, and this Immaculate Conception was one of them. Tiepolo was in his 70s and near the end of a long career, called to Madrid to work for the Spanish crown. He gives the Virgin all the traditional signs at once, the crescent moon under her feet, the crown of stars, the dove above, the serpent crushed below. Within a few years, though, the king's taste had shifted toward the cooler neo-classicism of Anton Raphael Mengs, and Tiepolo's altarpieces were taken down and replaced. This canvas made its way to the Prado in 1827.