Ascension of Christ or Ascension of Mary?: Reconsidering a Popular Early Iconography

This essay argues that an early Christian iconography that art historians today typically identify as the “Ascension of Christ” was instead originally understood as a scene from the Six Books Dormition narrative about the ascension of Mary. This art depicts Jesus inside a sphere in the sky above his arms-raised mother, who is herself usually flanked by twelve apostles, including Paul. Subsequent changes to both the Dormition text and the iconography resulted in the loss of this scene from Christian memory, but two ascension scenes carved on the early fifth-century doors of S. Sabina Basilica in Rome support the argument.