Rest on the Flight into Egypt

At the Paris Salon of May 1879 Merson showed a picture listed in the catalogue simply as Rest in Egypt, and it drew crowds. The American critic Earl Shinn called it a true poem that held the public in an irresistible and unaccustomed fascination. The Boston canvas carries that year in Roman numerals beside the signature. After the success Merson painted further versions, among them one of 1880 now in Nice. Night has come in the desert. Joseph sleeps beside a fire that is burning down, the donkey grazes on the thin grass, and the Virgin, holding the Child, has fallen asleep in the arms of a great sphinx. The light falls on her from the Child. The sphinx's face is raised toward the sky, where the first stars are coming out, though the sphinxes of ancient Egypt look straight ahead. Merson never travelled to North Africa and built the scene from archaeological detail. The Boston collector George Golding Kennedy bought it in Paris and left it to the museum in 1918. It is now the best-selling print in the museum's shop, and its sales jump every Christmas.