Rest on the Flight into Egypt

Rest on the Flight into Egypt is an oil on panel by Gerard David, the Flemish painter associated with the Early Netherlandish tradition. It shows the seated Virgin nursing the Christ Child in the foreground, with a dense forest landscape filling the background. The subject comes from the Gospel of Matthew, which recounts the Holy Family's flight to Egypt, but the idea of a pause along the way has no basis in that text and comes from apocryphal accounts. It was a theme artists returned to across many periods. David treated it several times with nearly identical compositions, which suggests that some versions may have been made without a commission, for the open market. Across these versions, attention stays fixed on Mary's intimate nursing scene, while a small scene linked to the journey or the rest usually appears far back in the landscape. The New York panel closely resembles the Madrid and Washington examples and differs mainly in showing a branch of apple instead of the usual basket.

Painter

Gerard David

Date

1513

Medium

oil paint, panel

Dimensions

51 × 43 cm

Museum

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City

Movement

Early Netherlandish painting

Genre

religious art

Depicts

breastfeeding, Mary, Madonna and Child, Christ Child

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