Following Rubens' models, 20th century

Spanish school of the first half of the twentieth century. Following models of PETER PAUL RUBENS (Siegen, Germany, 1577 - Antwerp, Belgium, 1640).
"Flight into Egypt".
Oil on canvas.
Needs restoration.
Measurements: 54 x 67 cm; 70,5 x 84 cm (frame).

This flight to Egypt follows the models of the homonymous painting realized by Peter Paul Rubens in 1614, today conserved in the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister. It is probably a Spanish painter following a print of the Flemish master's work. The flight into Egypt is an episode from the Gospel of Matthew, often used in art to identify the Holy Family with those disadvantaged by emigration and political repression. The New Testament story, very brief and typical of the Gospel of Matthew, tells how an angel appears in a dream to St. Joseph and tells him that he must flee to Egypt with Mary and the Child, because King Herod was looking for him to kill him. Joseph obeys, and after a while he is ordered to return, in a similar manner. The evangelist himself sees in the episode the fulfillment of an Old Testament prophecy: "out of Egypt I called my son" (Hosea 11:1). In the apocryphal Gospels and in the later Christian tradition, this episode will be expanded with a multitude of anecdotes and miracles that occurred during the journey, among which we find the rest during the flight to Egypt, an obligatory pause for the Virgin to suckle the Child Jesus.