Rest on the Flight into Egypt

Bernard van Orley's Rest on the Flight into Egypt at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto, painted around 1522, is a devotional panel presenting the holy family resting during their escape from Herod — one of the most popular subjects in early sixteenth-century Flemish painting because it combined the tenderness of the infant Christ with landscape setting and the intimacy of the family group. Van Orley's treatment reflects his mature synthesis of Flemish devotional intimacy with Italian monumental form, the figures given a new grandeur of scale and a warmer atmospheric quality influenced by the Raphaelesque tradition he had absorbed. The Art Gallery of Ontario holds this work as part of its European collection, and the Toronto holding of a Van Orley devotional panel testifies to the wide dispersal of Flemish painting through the international art market over the centuries since its creation. Van Orley's Holy Family subjects are among his most approachable works, combining theological content with the domestic warmth of the resting family that made them accessible to the full range of his clientele from court patrons to bourgeois collectors.

The painting demonstrates the technical conventions and artistic vocabulary of the period, with attention to composition, color, and the rendering of form appropriate to the subject.