page_title: Rest on the Flight into Egypt
section_title: Development of compositions
hierarchical_section_title: Rest on the Flight into Egypt / Development of compositions
context_page_description: The Rest on the Flight into Egypt is a subject in Christian art showing Mary, Joseph, and the infant Jesus resting during their flight into Egypt. The Holy Family is normally shown in a landscape.
  The subject did not develop until the second half of the fourteenth century, though it was an "obvious step" from depictions of the "legend of the palm tree" where they pause to eat dates and rest; palm trees are often included. It was a further elaboration of the long-standing traditions of incidents that embellished the story of the Flight into Egypt, which the New Testament merely says happened, without giving any details.
  The earliest known Rest is a panel in the large compartmented Grabow Altarpiece by the north German painter Meister Bertram, from about 1379, and the subject was mainly found north of the Alps until 1500 or later. Most depictions are made for wealthy homes rather than churches, and the subject only rarely forms part of cycles of the Life of Christ in churches. As landscape painting increased in popularity, it became an alternative to the original scene of the family on the road, and by the late sixteenth century perhaps overtook it in popularity.
context_section_description: The panel in the Grabow Altarpiece emphasises eating and drinking: Jesus is breastfeeding, the donkey drinking from a stream, and Joseph eating (probably bread) while offering Mary a bottle. Although the painting has a gold ground, this is one of the panels where landscape settings are painted around the edges.  For about a century after this, depictions remain few.  An altarpiece by Hans Memling (Louvre) marks the beginning of a sharp increase in depictions of the scene, and introduces the miracles to the background landscape, though the composition, with a standing Virgin, is unusual. 
  In the decades around 1500 the Virgin and Child often dominate the composition in Early Netherlandish paintings, with Joseph and the donkey in the middle distance, if they are visible at all.  In a Gerard David in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, Joseph is seen in the background gathering food by beating a chestnut tree with a long stick, a detail probably borrowed from miniatures of the Labours of the Months in the calendars of books of hours, and perhaps a northern substitute for the dates in the legends.  The Washington painting appears to be the earliest in a number of paintings of the subject, or using the central figures in other contexts, that were apparently produced by transfer from copies of drawings.  Many of these are loosely attributed to the large Bruges workshop of Adriaen Isenbrandt.  
  Despite the fact that on the Flight itself Joseph is invariably shown on foot, leading the donkey on which Mary and the child are seated, in Rests, Joseph is typically still shown standing, if not engaged in some activity.  After the High Renaissance he often stands behind the Virgin, giving a pyramidal group of figures when she is flanked by angels.  Relatively few depictions show him resting his feet seated next to Mary, or eating.  These include an engraving of c. 1506 by Lucas van Leyden, and a chiaroscuro drawing by Hans Springinklee of 1514.  
  The wider landscape of the Patinir in the Prado allows space for depictions in the distance (at right) of the Massacre of the Innocents which provoked the flight, and the "miracle of the corn".  The falling pagan idols are shown both on the top of the temple at far left (though a statue of a rat-headed god is intact) and by the pair of metal feet on the sphere next to the Virgin.  The donkey is grazing some way off, and Joseph seems to have obtained a pot of milk, which he is carrying back.  There are a number of versions by Patinir or his circle; other prolific makers of Rests include Jan Brueghel the Elder and Jan Brueghel the Younger and various collaborators, and Simone Cantarini (1612–1648).  Part way through painting what would have been an early Italian version of the subject, Giovanni Cariani seems to have changed his mind and added shepherds to create an "eccentric" composition of the Adoration of the Shepherds (1515-17, Royal Collection).
  Untypical examples with specific activities include the famous Caravaggio, where Joseph holds the sheet music for an angel playing a viol; here both the Virgin and Child have fallen asleep.  The only piece of detail the gospel gives is that the flight began "at night", but landscape scenes at night were very rare in art in the first centuries of the subject.  In a night scene by Rembrandt (1647, Dublin), the family seem to have joined some herdsmen with a big fire for the night; this is his only night landscape.  This relates to the painting of the Flight by Adam Elsheimer where they are just arriving at such an improvised encampment; Rembrandt would have known this from a print.  Two other unusual treatments from Dutch Golden Age painting are a realist scene showing the family in more or less contemporary dress in a run-down Dutch tavern or farmhouse by Abraham Bloemaert (1634, Rijksmuseum), and one with Joseph reading from a large book, no doubt religious, by Aert de Gelder (c. 1690, Boston).   
  The subject is sometimes not easily distinguished from the Holy Family in Egypt, though the presence of the young John the Baptist, and a hous
caption: Rest on the Flight by Caravaggio, c. 1597, Doria Pamphilj Gallery, Rome
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