The Rest on the Flight into Egypt

The story behind this scene is a flight. Warned that the newborn Christ was in danger, his family packed up and left for Egypt, and painters usually chose the drama of the escape. Bassano, around 1547, took the pause instead, the moment they stop to rest. Mary holds the Child while Joseph leans in to look at him. Around them is the plain stuff of a family on the road: swaddling bands laid out on the ground in front, two young men holding a restless donkey, a shepherd kneeling to one side. The swaddling cloths in the foreground are painted as carefully as anything else here, ordinary linen given the same close attention as the sacred figures above it.