The Flight into Egypt

Peter Rubens

Summary

A reproduction produced by the Vasari Society of a drawing by Peter Paul Rubens. The drawing shows a woman cradling a baby seated on a donkey, which is walking towards the left of the composition in a wooded landscape. The woman holds the baby to the left, while she looks towards the right. An old man with a stick is standing in the right foreground facing towards the left with his head turned away from the viewer towards the woman on the donkey. In the left foreground, a winged figure is walking beside the donkey, holding the end of the rope around the donkey's muzzle in his left hand. With his right hand he holds a piece of cloth wrapped around him. In the upper left of the composition, another winged figure flies beside the woman holding a lit torch down towards the donkey's head. In the upper right of the composition a figure emerges from behind a cloud facing towards the right. The original drawing was done in chalk and wash. Text from the accompanying booklet produced by the Vasari Society: "No. 23 PETER PAUL RUBENS (b. 1577, d. 1640) THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT British Museum (G. g. 2-234). From the Cracherode Collection. Chalk and wash, heightened with white. 36.5 x 47 cm. (14 3/8 x 18 3/8 in.) Several versions of this design exist in picture form, of which the best and earliest is at Cassel. This highly finished drawing is later by several years than the picture, departing from it in many details, and was done in preparation for engraving. The picture at Cassel and its feeble variant in the Louvre reveal the influence of Elsheimer; the child is the centre of the major light, which is contrasted with the light of the moon. In the drawing an angel brandishes a torch, the brook has disappeared, and the scene has changed from an idyllic vein of intervention to a more demonstrative and decorative scheme of things. A later version doubtless exists in picture form, but it is known to me only in photograph. C. R."