Cleveland Museum of Art
The Flight into Egypt
Albrecht DürerLinkedCulture matchlcp-91cf98b472c5
- Date
- c. 1503–5
- Medium
- woodcut
- Culture
- Germany, early 16th Century
- Department
- Prints
- Institution
- Cleveland Museum of Art
- Object ID
- 136178
From the Cleveland Museum of Art record
Although Dürer’s woodcut depicts a later event in the biblical narrative, the composition is similar to the scene from the Mirror of Holiness , " Mary and Joseph Travel to Bethlehem" CMA 2005.145.24.b —even to the inclusion of an ox. Mary, Joseph, and the infant Jesus fled Jerusalem for Egypt after Joseph was warned in a dream that Jesus’s life was in danger. The dense, dark forest through which the Holy Family travels seems to close threateningly around them. While the Indian artist envisioned a “pack beast” as a camel, Dürer invented a Middle Eastern landscape by incorporating a palm tree and other curious vegetation. The dense forest setting of the Flight into Egypt includes tropical trees and lizards.
The authoritative record is held by Cleveland Museum of Art. LinkedCulture surfaces this object and its connections; it does not alter institutional metadata.
Get printable QR codesHide QR codes
Open QR codes for this object page and the museum record. They stay collapsed until needed.
Provenance & credit
As published by the source institution. Coverage varies — not every institution's open-data feed includes ownership history.
- Credit line
- Dudley P. Allen Fund
- Provenance
- ?–1959: (William H. Schab Gallery, New York, NY, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art) | 1959–: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
Related across collections
Semantically similar works from Cleveland Museum of Art and other institutions.