Rest on the Flight into Egypt (Caravaggio)
| Rest on the Flight into Egypt | |
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| Italian: Riposo durante la fuga in Egitto | |
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| Artist | Caravaggio |
| Year | c. 1597 |
| Medium | Oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 135.5 cm × 166.5 cm (53.3 in × 65.6 in) |
| Location | Doria Pamphilj Gallery, Rome |
Rest on the Flight into Egypt (c. 1586 creation) is a painting by the Italian Baroque master Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, in the Doria Pamphilj Gallery, Rome. It depicts an angel playing the violin to the Holy Family during their flight into Egypt.
The scene is based not on any incident in the Bible itself, but on a body of tales or legends that had grown up in the early Middle Ages around the Bible story of the Holy Family fleeing into Egypt for refuge on being warned that Herod the Great was seeking to kill the Christ Child. According to the legend, Joseph and Mary paused on the flight in a grove of trees; the Holy Child ordered the trees to bend down so that Joseph could take fruit from them, and then ordered a spring of water to gush forth from the roots so that his parents could quench their thirst. This basic story acquired many extra details during the centuries.
Caravaggio shows Mary asleep with the infant Jesus, while Joseph holds a manuscript for an angel who is playing a hymn to Mary on the violin.
The date of the painting is disputed. According to Caravaggio's contemporary Giulio Mancini, this painting and the Penitent Magdalene, together with an unidentified painting of Saint John the Evangelist, was done while Caravaggio was staying with Monsignor Fantino Petrignani, shortly after leaving the workshop of Giuseppe Cesari. This probably happened in January 1594.
However, there are problems with accepting Mancini's statement. To begin, none of these three works were listed in Petragnani's inventory of 1600, although it is possible that they could have been painted for another patron. More seriously, the painting has an obvious and direct compositional source in Annibale Carracci's Judgement of Hercules, which was completed early in 1596 and widely admired: the pose of Caravaggio's angel, for example, is closely based on that of Carracci's figure of Vice.
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