潘恰蒂基升天图

Andrea del Sarto painted this Assumption in the early 1520s for a Florentine merchant, Bartolomeo Panciatichi, who wanted it for a private altar in a French church in Lyon, where he did much of his business. It never made the trip. The picture stayed in Italy, changed hands among wealthy families, and ended up here in the Pitti Palace, where in the 1680s a Medici prince had the panel enlarged so it would fit a frame matching another Assumption in the collection. Del Sarto splits the scene in two. The apostles crowd around Mary's empty tomb below, staring up as she rises into a ring of small angels. One of the kneeling apostles, turning to look out at us, is often taken for the painter himself.