Shown from the knees up, a pale-skinned woman sits in front of a vast landscape and holds a nude baby boy on her lap in this horizontal painting. The woman, Mary, sits with her knees angled to our left, but she looks at us from the corners of brown eyes. She has a delicate nose, smooth cheeks, a pointed chin, and her pink lips are closed. A few strands of blond hair escape from braids that overlap across the top of her head. She wears a rose-red dress over a translucent white undergarment, which is visible along the neckline and on the forearms. A cloth striped with azure and powder blue, pale pink, lemon yellow, and teal drapes across her seated thighs and wraps back around her hips. One hand rests in her lap near one of the baby’s feet, and the other braces the child’s other hip. The baby, Jesus, has tightly curled blond hair and a flushed face. His body resembles a somewhat muscular adult. Jesus rests his shoulders back against the woman’s chest and turns to look up at her. One hand touches one of her breasts and the other holds a butterfly by its parchment-yellow wings. The foot not by the woman’s hand rests on a gold dagger near the woman’s far hip. A gnarled tree with dark green leaves winds from a rocky crag to our left. The pair are lit from our left, and Mary casts a shadow on the large, flat boulder on which she sits. The land dips steeply down beyond the boulder. A man wearing a pale pink garment that flaps in the wind stands on a rocky outcropping near a grazing animal. Tiny in scale, three more people walk or run in the distance to our right. Stone structures are tucked in among tree-dotted hills that roll gently back to a hazy blue, mountainous horizon, which comes about five-sixths of the way up this composition. The sky above is a similar icy blue.

The Rest on the Flight into Egypt

Maerten van Heemskerck

Shown from the knees up, a pale-skinned woman sits in front of a vast landscape and holds a nude baby boy on her lap in this horizontal painting. The woman, Mary, sits with her knees angled to our left, but she looks at us from the corners of brown eyes. She has a delicate nose, smooth cheeks, a pointed chin, and her pink lips are closed. A few strands of blond hair escape from braids that overlap across the top of her head. She wears a rose-red dress over a translucent white undergarment, which is visible along the neckline and on the forearms. A cloth striped with azure and powder blue, pale pink, lemon yellow, and teal drapes across her seated thighs and wraps back around her hips. One hand rests in her lap near one of the baby’s feet, and the other braces the child’s other hip. The baby, Jesus, has tightly curled blond hair and a flushed face. His body resembles a somewhat muscular adult. Jesus rests his shoulders back against the woman’s chest and turns to look up at her. One hand touches one of her breasts and the other holds a butterfly by its parchment-yellow wings. The foot not by the woman’s hand rests on a gold dagger near the woman’s far hip. A gnarled tree with dark green leaves winds from a rocky crag to our left. The pair are lit from our left, and Mary casts a shadow on the large, flat boulder on which she sits. The land dips steeply down beyond the boulder. A man wearing a pale pink garment that flaps in the wind stands on a rocky outcropping near a grazing animal. Tiny in scale, three more people walk or run in the distance to our right. Stone structures are tucked in among tree-dotted hills that roll gently back to a hazy blue, mountainous horizon, which comes about five-sixths of the way up this composition. The sky above is a similar icy blue.

Colors in this work

Details
Artist
Maerten van Heemskerck
Date
c. 1530
Medium
oil on panel
Dimensions
overall: 57.7 × 74.7 cm (22 11/16 × 29 7/16 in.) framed: 78.11 × 94.93 × 6.35 cm (30 3/4 × 37 3/8 × 2 1/2 in.)
Department
CNE-R
Holding institution
National Gallery of Art
Palette

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Image provider
national-gallery-of-art
License
CC0-1.0
Credit
Samuel H. Kress Collection

Art Genome Taxonomy

8 tags

Subject Matter

  • Bible Story Metadata · 99%

    The catalog title, The Rest on the Flight into Egypt, identifies a biblical episode.

  • Madonna and Child Both · 99%

    The catalog identifies the figures as Mary and Jesus, and the image visibly shows a woman holding a nude infant in her lap.

  • Landscapes Both · 98%

    A broad mountainous landscape with trees, rocky terrain, distant buildings, and open sky occupies much of the background; the catalog likewise describes a vast landscape.

  • Figures in Nature Visual · 96%

    The principal figures are situated outdoors among a large tree, rocky ground, vegetation, distant people, and a grazing animal.

Medium and Techniques

  • Painting Both · 99%

    The work is visibly a painted image, and the catalog classifies it as a painting.

  • Oil on Panel Metadata · 100%

    The catalog specifies oil on panel.

Time Periods

  • 16th Century Art Metadata · 99%

    The catalog dates the work to circa 1530, placing it in the sixteenth century.

Cultural and Religious Styles

  • Christian Art and Architecture Metadata · 98%

    The title and catalog identification of Mary and Jesus establish a Christian sacred subject, which is also visibly represented in the image.

Source & rights

Maerten van Heemskerck. The Rest on the Flight into Egypt. Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington.

High-resolution sources

Catalog record ↗ Image source ↗ Image license ↗ Image-use terms ↗ Catalog metadata terms ↗

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