The Flight into Egypt (1470–74): Art, History and Details

The Flight into Egypt (1470–74) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Martin Schongauer (German, c. 1450–1491).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

According to the apocryphal Gospel by Pseudo-Matthew, while resting in Egypt after fleeing the Massacre of the Innocents and their home in Israel, the Virgin Mary asked Joseph to harvest some dates from a palm. As Joseph could not reach the fruits on the three, Jesus ordered the plant to bend down. Martin Schongauer's print is clearly inspired by this episode. the Virgin Mary is shown holding him and riding on a donkey, which is momentarily resting under a palm. Five hovering angels are pulling down the top of the tree to enable Joseph to pick dates. This print belongs to a set of four engravings considered to be an incomplete series of episodes of the Life of the Virgin, which also include The Nativity (1939.448), The Adoration of the Magi (1942.1070), and The Death of the Virgin (1956.744).

Object facts

• Title: The Flight into Egypt
• Date: 1470–74
• Creator attribution: Martin Schongauer (German, c. 1450–1491)
• Culture: Germany
• Type: Print
• Technique: engraving
• Dimensions: Image: 25.5 x 17.1 cm (10 1/16 x 6 3/4 in.); Sheet: 25.5 x 17.1 cm (10 1/16 x 6 3/4 in.)
• Collection: PR - Engraving
• Department: Prints
• Accession number: 1954.260

A detail from the museum

The inclusion of tropical details such as the dragon tree, parrot, and lizards could be evidence of Martin Schongauer's trip to Spain during his Wanderjahre (apprenticeship trip) in the 1460s.

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Richards, Louise. "Engravings by Martin Schongauer." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 42, no. 3 (March 1955): 43-45.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.