17th century, Return from the flight to Egypt

17th century, Central Italian area
Return from the flight to Egypt
Oil on canvas, 68 x 53 cm - with frame 87 x 65.5 cm

The work represents the biblical episode of the return from the flight into Egypt of the Holy Family, which occurred due to the persecution hatched by Herod; the episode is narrated in the initial part of the Gospel of Matthew, commonly called "Childhood Gospel" (Mt 1-2). The fact begins with a providential warning that Joseph receives in a dream. The narration continues with the story of the Holy Family, which remained in Egypt until the death of Herod. Egypt, for its proximity to Israel, therefore represented the most immediate refuge for those who escaped from the tyranny of the king of Judea. The Holy Family returned from Egypt only when it learned of the death of Herod and the ascent of his son Archelaus to rule in Judea, when the Tetrarch Herod Antipas ruled in Nazareth in Galilee. The Holy Family thus undertook the pilgrimage to Jerusalem during Easter, when Jesus, at the age of 12 and therefore just before his major religious age (Bar Mitzva), had to appear before the Masters. An Apocryphal Gospel reports that he was examined on all the sciences studied at the time. The scene presented here clearly shows the Child, now a young man, accompanied by his parents' hands towards his future and assisted by God the Father and the Holy Spirit who watch over him from Heaven. The work is characterized by the chromatic vivacity unfolded in the accentuated colorisms of the landscape, with dark and incisive hues, as well as those of the garments of the three protagonists in the foreground, defined by flaky and well shaped draperies on the physiognomy of the bodies. The light that invades the landscape, on the other hand, is divine and pierces the sky penetrating into the earthly reality protagonist of the narration.