the sources that have inspired artists in depicting the Assumption of the Virgin date back to the Apocryphal Gospels of the Transit of the Virgin, to the Patristic period of the 5^th century and, in the Middle Ages, to Jacopo da Varazze’s Golden Legend. Ichnographically, the Assumption is sometimes flanked by the Dormition but in many Renaissance paintings the Virgin is often depicted surrounded by divine light brought by the angels in Paradise.

Nicolas Poussin: Assumption of the Virgin, Louvre Museum, Paris.
© 2021. Photo Scala/Florence.

On € 5.40 denomination stamp: detail of the Virgin.

On souvenir sheet:  the painting in its entirety