The Rest on the Flight to Egypt with Saint Francis

The Holy Family pauses in a shadowy wood on the road to Egypt: Joseph reaches up to draw down dates from a palm, the Virgin and Child rest at the center, and Saint Francis kneels in adoration at the right, added for the chapel that commissioned the panel. One of Correggio's first major works, it already shows the soft, melting light and tender sweetness he learned from Leonardo and Mantegna and would carry, in his Parma frescoes, toward the Baroque. Gerard David's quieter northern Rest on the Flight is elsewhere in this collection - the same roadside pause, told now with Italian warmth.