The Flight into Egypt (c. 1503–5): Art, History and Details

The Flight into Egypt (c. 1503–5) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Albrecht Dürer (German, 1471–1528).

The work and its context

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

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.

Object facts

• Title: The Flight into Egypt
• Date: c. 1503–5
• Creator attribution: Albrecht Dürer (German, 1471–1528)
• Culture: Germany, early 16th Century
• Type: Print
• Technique: woodcut
• Collection: PR - Woodcut
• Department: Prints
• Accession number: 1959.99.14

A detail from the museum

The dense forest setting of the Flight into Egypt includes tropical trees and lizards.

Collection credit

Dudley P. Allen Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Dürer, Albrecht. The Life of the Virgin. Cleveland, Ohio: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1959.

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.