The J. Paul Getty Museum

Object Description

Fleeing to Egypt to avoid Herod's massacre of all newborn children, Joseph walks beside his wife the Virgin Mary, who cradles the Christ child while seated on a donkey. As the family passes a pagan idol atop a column, it breaks in half, signifying the downfall of paganism and the onset of the new Christian era. In the middle ground at the left, soldiers pursuing the Holy Family stop to question a farmer in a field. He truthfully informs them that he saw the family when he was planting his crops, omitting to tell them that the wheat had miraculously grown to full height overnight. Assuming that they had missed the family by months, the soldiers give up their search. These two apocryphal stories often appeared in medieval depictions of the Flight into Egypt.