Coronación de la Virgen

Beneath a pale blue sky, at the top of a stair of coloured marble, Christ crowns his mother, and a whole court of saints and angels turns to watch. Fra Angelico painted it for his own convent.

The story behind the painting

Fra Angelico was a Dominican friar at the convent of San Domenico in Fiesole, near Florence, and this Coronation of the Virgin was most likely painted for that community around 1434 to 1435, a few years after a similar Coronation now in the Uffizi. Wikidata gives no date, and some historians, among them John Pope-Hennessy, place it instead at the time of Angelico's stay in Rome around 1450. The panel, 213 by 211 centimetres, left Italy as a result of the pillages of the Napoleonic Wars. Like several other works, it was never returned, its large size used as the excuse. It now belongs to the Louvre in Paris.

What to look for

Compare it in your mind with the earlier Uffizi version. The gold background has gone, replaced by a more natural light blue sky. The coronation takes place under a rich canopy with Gothic triple windows and twisted columns, raised on a flight of polychrome marble steps. At the sides, angels and saints form the audience, now more clearly defined, some seen from behind as if we stood among them. The floor tiles follow geometric perspective. Look to the right and you may notice a less careful hand: Saint Catherine's wheel is painted roughly and some faces are less expressive, signs of the assistants who helped extensively.

Meaning and intent

The painting gathers the whole of heaven into an ordered space. The steps, the receding tiles and the figures turning their backs draw us into the scene, as if we were climbing toward the throne ourselves. The source links this more advanced composition to innovations introduced by Masaccio. For a convent of friars, such an image would have offered a vision of glory reached through order and harmony. Below the main scene, the predella continues the story with the Miracles of Saint Dominic, founder of Angelico's own order, and at its centre the Resurrection of Christ. These small scenes again use geometric perspective, with alternating empty and full architecture.

Legacy

The Louvre Coronation marks a step forward from Angelico's own earlier treatment of the subject, swapping a gold ground for open sky and flat pattern for measured space. Pope-Hennessy suggested its angels were influenced by those in the San Brizio Chapel of Orvieto Cathedral, painted in 1447, which supports his later dating. Its twisted columns recall the tabernacles painted in the Niccoline Chapel frescoes in Rome. The painting also carries a history of displacement: taken during the Napoleonic Wars and kept because of its size, it has been part of the Louvre's collection ever since, far from the Fiesole convent for which it was made.

¿Sabías que…?

Painted around 1434-1435 for San Domenico, Fiesole; Pope-Hennessy dates it to about 1450
Wikidata gives no date for the work
Taken to France during the Napoleonic Wars and never returned
Predella shows the Miracles of Saint Dominic and the Resurrection

Wikipedia · Wikidata