Rest on the Flight into Egypt

The Rest on the Flight into Egypt — the Holy Family pausing during their escape from Herod's massacre of the innocents — was a popular Baroque subject that combined the sacred with the pastoral and domestic. Orazio Gentileschi's 1628 canvas, now at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, was painted in Genoa, where he worked between his departure from Rome and his invitation to England. The Kunsthistorisches Museum's Italian holdings are among the finest in the world, assembled by the Habsburg emperors who were major patrons of Italian Baroque painting. Gentileschi's treatment of the resting group — Virgin nursing or holding the child, Joseph seated nearby, donkey and landscape — allowed him to deploy his characteristic cool, clear light across multiple figures and natural elements. The subject's pastoral quality invited him to paint landscape settings with attention to the quality of outdoor light, a challenge distinct from his usual interior illumination.

Canvas with natural outdoor light — diffuse, even — replacing the strong interior chiaroscuro of Gentileschi's earlier work. The figures of the Virgin, Child, and Joseph are rendered against a landscape that recedes convincingly through atmospheric perspective. Fabric receives detailed treatment in the outdoor setting; the Virgin's blue mantle is a particular chromatic challenge under diffuse sky light.