17th century Spanish school

17th century Spanish school.
"Flight into Egypt".
Oil on copper.
Measurements: 40 x 52 cm; 46 x 58 cm (frame).
The flight to Egypt is an episode of the Gospel of Matthew very treated in the art, frequently used to identify the Holy Family with the disadvantaged by the emigration and the political repression. The New Testament account, very brief and typical of Matthew's Gospel, tells how an angel appears in a dream to Saint 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 time he is ordered to return, in a similar manner. The evangelist himself sees in the episode the fulfilment of an Old Testament prophecy: "out of Egypt I called my son" (Hosea 11:1). In the apocryphal Gospels and in later Christian tradition, this episode will be expanded with a multitude of anecdotes and miracles that occurred during the journey, including the rest during the flight to Egypt, a necessary pause for the Virgin to suckle the Child Jesus.