The Flight into Egypt

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 [https://www.clevelandart.org/art/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.