Rest on the Flight into Egypt

Most paintings of the Holy Family fleeing to Egypt are heavy with danger. Barocci made something closer to a family stopping to rest. Joseph reaches up and bends a cherry branch down toward the child, Mary draws water, the donkey waits, a straw hat and a flask lie on the ground. The tenderness is the point, though the cherries carry a quieter meaning too, a red fruit painters used to hint at the blood of the Passion still to come. Barocci painted it for a patron in Perugia around 1570. It became so admired that it earned its own nickname, the Madonna of the Cherries, and today it hangs in the Vatican picture gallery.