Rest on the Flight into Egypt
Gerard David, 1515
This panel by Gérard David, painted around 1515, shows the Virgin seated before a plain throne, nursing the Child on her lap in the manner of the Virgin of Milk. On the left, within a wooded setting, the flight of the Holy Family appears in the background, a scene drawn from apocryphal tradition rather than from the Gospel of Matthew, which does not mention a rest. The narrative detail stays secondary to the mother and child at the centre. On the right, a landscape opens with a town by a river and a succession of hills receding to the horizon. The painter lavished care on the plants in the foreground, the basket of food and the leaves of beech and chestnut trees, a detail typical of the Flemish tradition. The modelling of Mary through chiaroscuro and the graded blues and greens of the landscape, which create depth, reveal the technical maturity of his later years. David returned to this subject several times with small variations, probably with the art market in mind rather than a specific commission.
- Painter
- Gerard David
- Date
- 1515
- Medium
- oil paint, panel
- Dimensions
- 60 × 39 cm
- Museum
- Museo del Prado, Madrid
- Movement
- Early Netherlandish painting
- Genre
- religious art
- Depicts
- Nursing Madonna, basketry
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