Attributed to Paolo Monaldi

Attributed to PAOLO MONALDI (Rome, 1710 - Rome, 1779).
"Flight from Egypt".
Oil on canvas.
Attached report by Rafael Manzano Martos.
Measurements: 66.5 x 45.5 cm; 84 x 66 cm (frame).
In this painting the classic models for this subject are followed, with the Holy Family and the donkey that serves as mount for Mary, who carries the infant Jesus in her lap. However, the angels that guide her way are omitted, in favor of a greater naturalism. Nor are elements that allude to the different miracles and episodes of the flight to Egypt represented in the background, since the clarity and realism so typical of the time are sought above all. In fact, we can appreciate the interest in capturing the landscape, which has a greater magnitude than the figures, in this work is represented a very frequent episode in Christian art, although it is only mentioned in the Gospel of Matthew (2:13-15). It is a symbolic episode, constructed by the evangelist as a justification of Hosea's prophecy: "Out of Egypt I called my son". Matthew misinterprets this prophecy, since the words did not refer to Jesus, but to the people of Israel freed from the slavery of Egypt by the Lord. However, Matthew's brief account was expanded by the apocryphal Gospels and the Golden Legend, adding inventions such as the miracles of the ears of corn and the palm tree, the attack of the bandits or the fall of the idols of Egypt, forming a whole new iconography.
Paolo Monaldi was born in Rome and attended the workshop of the Roman landscape painter Paolo Anesi. He collaborated with Anesi mainly by painting figures for his Roman views, as in the case of the decoration of Villa Chigi, executed between 1765 and 1767. Monaldi had a certain propensity for human figures and genre parodies in the style of the Roman bamboccianti of the late seventeenth century, while Anesi for views of Rome. His style also denounces a certain closeness to the painting of his contemporary Andrea Locatelli, also active in the capital.