The Return from Egypt (ca. 1705–24)
Original title: The Return from Egypt
kurzbeschreibung
An unknown engraver produced this print at some point between 1705 and 1724. It shows the Holy Family travelling home from Egypt: Joseph, Mary and the Christ child set within a landscape in the Baroque manner. The sheet at hand reproduces an older model in reverse.
Description
In the foreground a bearded man with flowing hair carries a child on his arm; beside him walks a woman in a hat, leading a second child by the hand. A donkey follows the man, and a palm tree bends over the group behind them. Trees and a cloudy sky frame the action, while a Latin poem is set along the lower edge. The layout feels balanced, and light falling from above picks out the contours of figures and landscape.
Context
The engraving belongs to the early eighteenth century and was made as a mirror-image copy, a method then used to circulate pictorial models. The Flight into Egypt and the return from it were hugely popular subjects in Catholic Baroque art, joining biblical narrative to popular devotion. The Latin inscription suggests religious or instructional use. The unnamed engraver followed an older model and took over its arrangement in reverse.
Impact
The clear, even arrangement and careful linework give the sheet a calm, narrative character. With no colour, attention rests entirely on the figures and their gestures, which bring the biblical event directly before the eye.
Technique
For an engraving, lines are cut into a metal plate and then printed on paper. That the image appears reversed points to a copy after an original, in which the plate was worked as a mirror image. Fine hatching and contour lines model shadow and surface in garments and landscape.
AI-generated description text
Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art · Public Domain (CC0 1.0)