The Flight into Egypt

On a stone at the lower right Van der Werff signed this panel Chevr. vr Werff, with the date 1710. The first word stands for chevalier, knight. It was the title a German prince, the Elector Palatine, had given his court painter seven years earlier, and Van der Werff put it into his signatures.

The first owner on record is Maria van der Werff in Rotterdam, almost certainly the painter's daughter, who was about 18 that year and kept the picture for some eight years. It shows the Holy Family picking its way down a rocky path in the evening. Mary holds the child close, Joseph reaches back to steady her with the donkey behind him, and the columns of a ruined classical portico rise behind them.

Around 1745 the panel was bought by Prince William IV, father of the stadholder who later opened the gallery where it now hangs. It belongs to the Mauritshuis and is shown in the Gallery Prince Willem V.