Claude Gellée was trained as a pastry chef in Lorraine, France. Orphaned at age twelve, Claude traveled to Rome, where he found work as a painter’s servant. By the time he was twenty-seven years old, Claude was established in Rome as a painter of landscapes, a newly emerging genre.

Claude’s landscapes found great favor among Rome’s land-owning nobility, who appreciated his ability to combine the actual characteristics of the Roman countryside with idealized, poetic evocations. To achieve the realistic aspects of his landscapes, Claude ventured into the malaria-ridden campagna and made ink sketches that boldly capture the effects of sunlight at different hours, under various atmospheric conditions. Back in his studio, he enhanced these with a repertoire of motifs, including classical temples, shepherds and travelers, and full-canopied trees towering in the middle ground. Drama and grandeur enter the compositions by means of distant horizons, surprising—but not irrational—shifts in scale, and pooling areas of sunlight.

This work, dating from Claude’s early career, represents Mary, Joseph, and the Christ child going into Egypt to escape Herod’s persecution in Bethlehem. The peacefulness of the pastoral setting provides a sharp contrast to the violent massacre in the city they have fled. The infant Jesus holds the donkey’s reins, a precocious action that may symbolize his divine nature, and the role of providence in the family’s safekeeping.