Minneapolis Institute of Art

Rest on the Flight into Egypt and the Miraculous Field of Wheat

Workshop of Joachim Patinir

Date

c. 1518–24

Medium

Oil on panel

Department

European Art

Institution

Minneapolis Institute of Art

This painting depicts scenes from the Bible related to the so-called Massacre of the Innocents. King Herod, upon hearing that a “King of the Jews”—Jesus Christ—had been born in Bethlehem, orders the slaughter of all male children in and around the town in order to protect his claim to the throne. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph—the Holy Family—escaped to Egypt. While the infanticide rages in the distance, Joseph, on the left, collects water from a spring that appeared as a miracle of God. To track down the Holy Family, Herod’s soldiers interrogate farmers in their fields. The farmers truthfully answer that the family passed when the wheat seed was being sown into the ground. Through divine intervention, the wheat grows to its full height overnight, suggesting that the family had passed several months earlier and saving them from certain death. Netherlands, Europe

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