Death of the Virgin (mid-1500s): Art, History and Details

Death of the Virgin (mid-1500s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

This panel reveals a long history of changes. The initial work was painted on a single slab of wood, with strips left unpainted along the top and bottom. At an unknown time, the panel was probably cut down on the right and left sides, and the two blank strips at the top and bottom were filled in to enlarge the picture, most likely to fit its current, elaborately carved, 18th-century frame. Although these additions must have been initially more convincing, they were painted to match the yellowed and darkened original image, and thus no longer match the original paint. The flat and mismatched handling of the draperies in the lower portion also signal the intervention of a subsequent hand. The painting may have been part of an altarpiece as the predella, a long, horizontal painting along the base. The bottom of this panel exhibits signs of damage from fire and smoke, perhaps from the candles that could have been placed in front of it.

Object facts

• Title: Death of the Virgin
• Date: mid-1500s
• Culture: Italy, Venice
• Type: Painting
• Technique: oil on wood
• Dimensions: Framed: 78.8 x 130.9 cm (31 x 51 9/16 in.); Unframed: 25 x 103.5 cm (9 13/16 x 40 3/4 in.)
• Collection: P - Italian 16th & 17th Century
• Department: European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1916.797

Collection credit

Holden Collection

Further reading listed by the museum

• The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Catalogue of Paintings, Part 3: European Paintings of the 16th, 17th, and 18th Centuries. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1982.
• Rubinstein-Bloch, Stella. Catalogue of a Collection of Paintings, Etc. Presented by Mrs. Liberty E. Holden to the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1917.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.