The Rest on the Flight into Egypt (The Repose of the Holy Family in Egypt)

William Blake

1806 · Watercolor, pen and black ink, over graphite · Drawings and Prints

Having fled Judea to escape the persecution of King Herod, the Holy Family here rests on their way to Egypt. Blake places them within a lyrical landscape lit by the setting sun and indicates their destination with distant pyramids. Since the biblical text that mentions this journey includes few details, Blake drew upon established devotional traditions to compose the scene. The Virgin seated on the ground to nurse the infant Christ recalls the Renaissance type of the Madonna of Humility. The enormous, sheltering palm tree is described in the apocryphal Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew as having bowed its branches to furnish the travelers with fruit, and the donkey is derived from a seventeenth-century engraving of the subject.

Artist

William Blake

Date

1806

Medium

Watercolor, pen and black ink, over graphite

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

Rogers Fund, 1906