The Return of the Holy Family to Nazareth

When this canvas was shown in Cleveland in 1956, the catalogue called it a Flight into Egypt. Look at the boy, though. He is a sturdy toddler, held by Joseph and stretching up with both arms, far too old to be the newborn carried away from Herod's soldiers. The family is going the other way, home to Nazareth after Herod's death, a much rarer subject. Poussin painted it in Rome around 1627, three years or so after arriving from France. What the child reaches for is a cross, carried through the clouds by angels, a glimpse of how his life will end and a reminder of the infants Herod had killed. The painting belonged to the princes of Liechtenstein from at least 1733. After the Second World War the family lost its estates in Czechoslovakia and began selling pictures, and Cleveland bought this one in 1953.