The assumption as it was! Titian’s largest altarpiece is back after a long restoration. The work will be presented today in the Basilica of Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari. Four years of work! German photographer Friederike von Rauch was present at close range during the restoration of Titian’s masterpiece The Assumption in the church of Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari in Venice. This monumental work, which was inaugurated in 1518 in the apse of the church where it has stood for most of the past five hundred years, was the subject of conservation studies and measures between 2018 and 2022. The photographs that von Rauch produced during this process were taken from the temporary scaffolding constructed around the altarpiece. Her pictures give an intimate impression of layers of paint, colors, and materials seen in small details, emulating the close-up view of the conservator. Von Rauch used this material as the basis for abstract montages of the sort that she is currently developing in her Berlin studio. In these works she extracts details from their original context and reassembles them in new constellations. She focuses on the composition of colors, whose multiplicity appears anew through changing light conditions and perspectives during conservation. The individual pictorial elements, such as draperies, their shades and abstract lines, are brought together in novel ways and formulate a very unique visual language. By removing all narrative elements, she highlights abstract qualities that only become apparent when seen up close. This new view of Titian sensitizes viewers to the unseen elements in a painting and encourages them to look more carefully at the newly restored masterpiece.