The Coronation of the Virgin by Fra Angelico

The Coronation of the Virgin by Fra Angelico

Heaven as a staircase

Christ and his mother sit enthroned under a Gothic canopy at the top of a flight of steps, and he lowers a crown onto her bowed head. Below them the whole court of heaven is arranged in tiers: angels with trumpets and lutes on the upper steps, and on the lower ones saints and virgins, each identified by attribute — Catherine with her wheel, Agnes with her lamb, Dominic, Nicholas, Mary Magdalene with her jar. The colours are the purest Fra Angelico ever used: lapis blue, vermilion, rose, and gold everywhere.

Painted for his own convent

It was made for San Domenico in Fiesole, the hillside Dominican house above Florence where Fra Angelico himself was a friar. The predella below the main panel tells the story of Saint Dominic, the order’s founder, in small scenes.

From Fiesole to Paris

Napoleon’s commissioners removed the altarpiece in 1812, and it was not returned after 1815. It has hung in the Louvre ever since, one of the museum’s great Italian panels.

Where it hangs

The altarpiece is in the Louvre and measures 213 by 211 centimetres.

About this print

Made from a 9,358-pixel photograph of the original, enough to print sharply at up to about 62 inches on its longest side.

Sources: Musée du Louvre, Paris · Wikidata Q1215717 · Wikimedia Commons