Flight into Egypt (Pareja)

The Virgin Mary is depicted wearing a blue cloak and red dress, cradling the child Christ as they ride a donkey directed by an angel and followed by Saint Joseph. Above them, angels fly carrying palm fronds. The angels' luminous quality highlights Pareja's characteristic technique of outlining bright color choices with white accents.^[3] This technique is further visible in Christ's robe. In the distance, a date palm rises from the rugged landscape, emphasizing the composition's focus on the environment as much as the figures in the foreground. To the right of Mary's head, small, tight brushstrokes depict the Massacre of the Innocents (Matthew 2:16-2:18), the event that the Holy Family is fleeing from according to the biblical account.^[2]

Technical analysis revealed that the painting was created over an earlier composition of the same figures in a different sequence and at a smaller scale. It is not known whether the underlying image was created by another artist whose canvas Pareja reused or if Pareja reworked an earlier picture of his own.^[2]

The arrangement of the Holy Family in a frieze-like configuration may represent Pareja's familiarity with Northern European artistic traditions for representing the Flight into Egypt. These precedents include Ignatius Cornelis Marinus's print of the Flight into Egypt, based on a painting by Peter Paul Rubens.^[2]

The sky from which the angel emerges particularly highlights Pareja's familiarity with the Venetian paint palette, while his textured, rough brushwork heightens the painting's dramatic atmosphere.^[2]

Rubens's Return from Egypt may have also influenced the depiction of vegetation, particularly the palm trees, based on the apocryphal story of the palms bending as the Holy Family passed by. Pareja may have encountered Rubens's painting via Lucas Vorsterman II's engraving of it.^[2]