Marriage of the Virgin (Perugino)

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The Marriage of the Virgin

Perugino, 1500-1504

Oil on wood

234 × 1185 cm

Musée des Beaux-Arts, Caen

The Marriage of the Virgin is a painting by the Italian Renaissance master Perugino. It is housed in the Musée des Beaux-Arts of Caen, France.

Perugino painted his Marriage of the Virgin for a chapel in the cathedral in Perugia, which was completed in 1489, and in which the Virgin's engagement ring was kept. This valuable relic had been stolen from a church in Chiusi in 1478 and had only recently been retrieved, so it is not surprising that it takes pride of place in the centre of this picture. Pinturicchio had been originally commissioned the completion of the work, but when he failed Perugino was called on. He finished the work around 1500-1504, probably after several periods of stasis.

Later, in 1797, the picture was confiscated by Napoleon and was subsequently shifted to the Normandy city of Caen. Any attempt of the commune of Perugia, which saw also the personal commitment of Antonio Canova, to retrieve the work failed.

The wide perspective of the picture, with at its centre a hoctagonal edifice and the aligned composition of the figures on the sides, is strongly related to the Perugino's Christ Giving the Keys to St. Peter at the Sistine Chapel.

Raphael, Perugino's pupil, painted a version of his own of the picture in 1504.