Le Mariage de la Vierge

Perugino painted this around 1500 to 1504 for a chapel in Perugia cathedral that kept a relic said to be the Virgin Mary's own wedding ring, so the marriage of Mary and Joseph was exactly the right subject. He set it in front of a domed temple, the priest joining the couple's hands while a row of suitors looks on. What makes the picture famous today is what happened next. In his workshop was a young apprentice named Raphael, who took this very composition, the temple, the crowd, the gesture, and painted his own Marriage of the Virgin at almost the same moment, loosening the figures and deepening the space until the pupil had plainly overtaken the teacher. Perugino's altarpiece was later carried off to France and now hangs in Caen, in Normandy.