Luca Giordano (Neopolitan School, 1634-1705) The Assumption of the Virgin, circa 1665 Oil on canvas 40-3/4 x 42 inches (103.5 x 106.7 cm) PROVENANCE: [Possibly] Collection of Walter P. Chrysler, Sr., Detroit, Michigan; Thence by descent to one of his daughters; DuMouchelles, Detroit, Michigan, circa 1960s, sold by the above; Private collection, Chicago, acquired from the above, until 2017; Thence by descent in the family. Although the Assumption of the Virgin Mary into Heaven is not recounted in Scriptures, the event is recorded in apocryphal literature from the third and fourth centuries and has been celebrated as a Roman Catholic feast day (August 15) for centuries. The miraculous ascent of Mary's body and soul occurred three days after her death and was witnessed by Christ's apostles, all of whom had assembled at her open tomb, summarily indicated here in this unpublished work by the Neapolitan master, Luca Giordano. In accordance with Counter-Reformation subject matter, she appears borne by angels and with arms outstretched, indicating religious rapture, in contrast to earlier representations in which her hands were usually joined in prayer. Here, though, only two of Christ's apostles are present, gazing up at the Virgin from lower left. That singular feature would have been a marked exception in the iconography of Mary's assumption; indeed, it implies that the painting was not intended to be displayed in an ecclesiastical setting. Rather, it probably served a private individual with a particular devotion to Mary. By the time of the approximate date that Giordano made this work (for its dating, see discussion, below), the artist had become the foremost Baroque painter of the Neapolitan school. (His teacher, Jusepe de Ribera, had died in 1652, and Luca's only rival for the title, Mattia Preti, had transferred in 1661, for the rest of his long life, to Malta.) The son of an obscure Neapolitan painter, Luca was said to have been recognized as a child prodigy after his father discovered that he had completed one of the former's paintings by including depictions of several angels in the senior Giordano's absence. The number of his paintings (which include important fresco cycles in Italy and Spain) runs to some 1,100, which earned him the epithet, Luca fa presto (Luke, do it quickly). As one eminent scholar declared, "his output was so vast that new pictures are discovered each month." (E.K. Waterhouse, Italian Baroque Painting, London, 1969, p. 191). Luca's speed and facility amazed his contemporaries; some even ascribed such productivity to active miracles. In addition, he was "able to paint in an amazing variety of styles, which has earned him praise and disdain in equal measures." (P. Murray and L. Murray, A Dictionary of Art and Artists, [revised ed.], Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, 1975, p. 174). By his thirties he had attained international fame, second only to that earned, a generation before, by Peter Paul Rubens. Giordano depicted the subject of the Virgin's assumption to heaven a handful of times, mostly in his later years. The form of Mary here is comparable to that in the large altarpiece that Luca provided for the church of Santa Maria della Salute in Venice, which is signed and dated 1667; indeed, the uppermost angel, reaching down from Mary's lap, is essentially the same figure that Luca painted, in the present composition, at the extreme right. (The origins for the della Salute commission are richly documented in two letters, dated October 20 and November 3, 1668, to Cardinal Leopoldo de' Medici from his agent in Venice, Paolo del Sera, which also recount that Giordano had executed the picture, after returning from Venice in late 1665, in his native Naples; see G. Scavizzi, Luca Giordano: His Life and Work, Naples, 2017, pp. 132-4; for a fascinating, documentary account of Giordano's intermediaries and dealers in Venice at this very time, see A. Ubeda de los Cobos, "Spaniards, Italians and Portuguese Crypto-Jews in the Early Trade of Giordano's Works," in idem, Luca Giordano at the Museo Nacional del Prado: Catalogue Raisonné, Madrid, 2017, pp. 22-7.) A comparable soft, dozing angel appears in Venus and Mars in the Louvre, which the two leading Giordano specialists, Oreste Ferrari and Giuseppe Scavizzi, date to c. 1670, that is, roughly contemporary with the other pictures here discussed (see O. Ferrari and G. Scavizzi, Luca Giordano: l'opera completa, Naples, 2000, I, p. 290, no. A237). To conclude: stylistic comparisons between the present Assumption of the Virgin, the Santa Maria della Salute altarpiece in Venice, and the Venus and Mars suggest that the present work can be dated to about 1665 or soon after. On the back of the painting's support is a label with the following information: WPC / 905. The father of the present owner acquired Giordano's Assumption of the Virgin at a Detroit auction in the 1960s, at which time the picture was stated to have come from the collection of Walter P. Chrysler, Sr. (1875-1940), the engineer and founder of the Chrysler auto works. Additionally, it then descended into the collection of one of his two daughters, either Thelma Chrysler (Mrs. Byron C.) Foy, known for her collection of Impressionist and modern pictures, or Bernice Chrysler (Mrs. Edgar W.) Garbisch, who—with her husband—assembled a pioneer collection of American folk art (donated to the National Gallery of Art, 1954), as well as a sterling group of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings and eighteenth-century French furniture. On the other hand, the label's initials may refer to Walter Chrysler's son, Walter P. Chrysler, Jr. (1909-1988), who owned what amounted to "nearly sixty Italian Baroque paintings," including, at one time or another, seven paintings by Luca Giordano (E.M. Zafran, "Walter P. Chrysler, Jr., and His Collection of Italian Baroque Paintings," in E.P. Bowron, ed., Buying Baroque: Italian Seventeenth-Century Paintings Come to America, New York, and University Park, Pennsylvania, 2017, pp. 124-5, 127). The lasting contribution of this family member is the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, Virginia, which was taken over and funded by him in 1971. A large part of the collection belonging to the junior Walter Chrysler was auctioned off after his death, after it was discovered that his final will had never been signed. (Most of his possessions then devolved to a family member.) Presently, there is no record at the Chrysler Museum of Giordano's Assumption of the Virgin ever having been owned by W.P. Chrysler, Jr., nor can the Chief Registrar identify the WPC / 905 label on the painting's reverse (letter of Mark A. Castro, Director of Curatorial Affairs, Chrysler Museum of Art, e-mail dated April 24, 2026; Dr. Castro is undertaking a compilation of all of the art that was ever owned by Walter P. Chrysler, Jr.). Documentation for Chrysler's long-standing, large scale collecting career is, in any case, especially sparse, in part because he preferred to trade, rather than pay cash for, art acquisitions (see E.M. Zafran, "A History of Italian Baroque Painting in America," in R.P. Townsend, Botticelli to Tiepolo: Three Centuries of Italian Paintings From Bob Jones University, exh. cat., The Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa, 1994, pp. 65-8—a detailed account of his Italian Baroque holdings—and idem, "Walter P. Chrysler, Jr., and His Collection of Italian Baroque Paintings," pp. 116-27). HID12401132022 © 2026 Heritage Auctions | All Rights Reserved www.HA.com/TexasAuctioneerLicenseNotice

[Possibly] Collection of Walter P. Chrysler, Sr., Detroit, Michigan; Thence by descent to one of his daughters; DuMouchelles, Detroit, Michigan, circa 1960s, sold by the above; Private collection, Chicago, acquired from the above, until 2017; Thence by descent in the family.

Lined canvas. White spot abrasion extreme lower right. Fine craquelure trough central area.
Under UV: varnish fluoresces green. Small scattered areas of inpainting throughout, with one patch of in the Virgin's proper right arm.
Framed Dimensions 52.25 X 54 Inches