It was probably commissioned in 1513 and it appears the artist received a fee of 50 ducats from the Scuola di Santa Maria Maggiore's syndics, showing that he was already highly regarded on Venetian territory despite his youth.

Giorgio Vasari and Roberto Ridolfi also mention a painting of the Madonna in the Air by Vecchio, then in the Church of San Moisè.

[1] In 1808 the painting and the other works of the Scuola della Carità were confiscated by the Napoleonic authorities in Italy, entered the Gallerie dell'Accademia four years later.

[3] It is heavily influenced by Giovanni Bellini's Virgin in Glory with Saints, now in the church of San Pietro Martire in Murano and by Deposition in the Sepulchre in Iesi by Lorenzo Lotto, particularly in the depiction of the face of the angels supporting the Madonna, and in the slightly awkward angel holding up the ascending Virgin, an unusual representation.

They wear brightly coloured clothes, including red, green, and yellow cloaks, with a small gap at the bottom cut at an unknown date to allow for a tabernacle.