Die Flucht nach Ägypten

Elsheimer painted this small scene on a copper plate around 1609 in Rome, and it is often called the first truly naturalistic night sky in European art. Joseph leads the donkey carrying Mary and the child through the dark, lighting the way with a single torch whose flame is answered by a shepherds' fire off to the side. Above them the real night opens up. Elsheimer laid in the Milky Way as a genuine river of separate stars and set actual constellations in their true places, Ursa Major at the far left and Leo overhead. This was the same decade Galileo first turned a telescope on the heavens. When Elsheimer died the next year, the picture was still hanging in his own bedroom.