The Rest on the Flight into Egypt (David)

Pausing on the road to Egypt, the Virgin sits on a rock and offers the Christ Child a bunch of grapes - the wine of his future sacrifice - while in the distance Joseph knocks fruit from a tree and the donkey grazes (Matthew 2:13-15). Gerard David wraps the Holy Family in a tender, exactly observed Flemish wood, the sacred moment made quiet and domestic. Such intimate devotional images were in great demand in Bruges, and David and his shop repeated the design often. With his Annunciation angel elsewhere in this collection, it shows the calm, late flowering of Netherlandish painting.