Madonna with Partridges

Anthony van Dyck painted this Rest on the Flight into Egypt in 1632, just as he was leaving Antwerp for London to become court painter to Charles the First of England. It was ordered by a Jesuit brotherhood of bachelors devoted to the Virgin, who asked for particular symbols to be worked in, so the picture is full of them. A sunflower rises behind Mary, turned toward the light as a sign of her pure, God-facing soul. A flock of partridges, long linked with lust, flies off to the right, driven away by her presence. A ring of small angels dances to entertain the child. Van Dyck left the birds and animals to a specialist colleague, the painter Paul de Vos.