This age about the life of Virgin Mary refers to the moment in which she ascends into the heavens after having deceased.  As was very common in New Spain painting, the scene in particular represents two components: the moment in which she ascends, accompanied by angels, looking into heaven where she shall reunite with her son, and the reactions of the apostles around her tomb after gathering several years later. Some texts indicate that Thomas did not arrive on time to see her, therefore when he arrived they decided to open it, finding noting but flowers that gave off a splendid aroma, as well as the tunic with which they had covered the body of the Virgin.[1]

In the image of the Museum we see an apostle, surely the same Thomas, who bends over exaggeratedly to touch the cloth and the flowers, thus highlighting how unexpected the event was. His representation, as well as that of other personages, denotes the characteristics of a painter perhaps uninterested in the naturalistic accuracy of the figures or rather untrained, which he compensates with the loose strokes of some zones and their soft expressions. The work, probably from the second half of the eighteenth century or the beginning of the nineteenth, does not bear the developments that the avant-guard painting of Mexico City had already taken, to that of Puebla by then, and the choice of the color palette, with the exception of the use of Prussian blue (synthesized for the first time in 1704); [2] the type of figures and composition seem to rather echo the local tradition of the previous century.[3]

[1]. Francisco Pacheco, El arte de la pintura, Edicion, introduccion y notas de Bonaventura Bassegoda i Hugas, Madrid, Catedra, 1990, [1649], pages 654-658.

[2]. Nicolas Easteaugh, Pigment Compendium, Italy, Butterworth-Heinemann, 2008, page 315.

[3]. Estudio de Jose Luis Ruvalcaba Sil, April 2012, pages 9-10.