Antwerp ca. 1585 – Antwerp after 1626
The Return form Egypt
Oil on copper
H 24,9 cm. W. 33,8 cm.
PROVENANCE
Private collection ǀ United States of America
Sale Christie’s ǀ New York ǀ 15 October 1992 ǀ Lot 31 ǀ With Christie’s label on the reverse
Private collection ǀ New York ǀ United States of America
RECORD
The present picture is recorded at the RKD in The Hague under nr. 513464 as by Jasper van der Lanen
CATALOGUE NOTE
The present picture depicts the theme known as the Return from Egypt (also refered to as the Rest during the Flight). The theme of the Flight into Egypt is dirived from the biblical story in Matthew 2:13-23, concerning the escape of Joseph and Mary with the newborn son Jesus to Egypt after having been warned by an angel about the upcoming Massacre of the Innocents. The Gospel tells that Wise Men from the East were looking for the newborn ”king of the Jews”. Herod heard about this and ordered his soldiers to go to Bethlehem and kill all boys up to two years old. According to the Gospel, the Holy Family (Mary, Joseph and Jesus) returned to Judea once Herod had died. When they learned that the violent Herod Archelaus had become the new king of Judea, they moved to Nazareth in Galilee, which was under the rule of Herod Antipas. The Return from Egypt, according to Matthew 2:15, was the fulfilment of a prophecy by the prophet Hosea: ‘Out of Egypt I called my son.’ Given the age of the depicted Christ Child in the present picture, this scene appears to represent not the flight to, but the return from Egypt. In this work, we see the Holy Family accompanied by an angel, travelling through a vast river and forest landscape. Joseph is leading a pack-laden donkey. He has a long saw over his shoulder, with luggage suspended from it, referring to his profession as a carpenter. On the right of the composition a rock with a large tree and a spring is depicted. The left side opens up to an idyllic river valley with a bridge, a small village, covered by softly coloured heavens.
The Antwerp born master Jasper van der Lanen was a specialist landscape painter. He bacame an apprentice in the Guild of St. Luke of Antwerp in 1607 and a master in 1615. In 1624 he married Elisabeth Rombouts in the St. Joriskerk, where the landscape painter Abraham Govaerts was a witness. Van der Lanen completed works by Govaerts after his death in 1626. His work was sometimes embellished with figures (know in Dutch as ‘gestoffeerd’) by Frans Francken II. Van der Lanen is known for his wooded landscapes with figures representing mythological or biblical stories or pastoral scenes. His work was only rediscovered in the mid-20th century. The discovery of additional signed works has made it possible to better understand the artist’s style. As a result, there have been more attributions to him of works, which had previously been attributed to other painters with which he shared a similar approach to landscape painting such as the financial masters Jan Brueghel the Elder and his son Jan Brueghel Younger. In fact, the present composition appears to follow a design by Jan Brueghel the Elder in collaboration with Hans Rottenhammer Flusslandschaft mit der Ruhe auf der Flucht, ca. 1600, oil on copper, H. 21,1 cm. W. 30,7 cm., kept in the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen in Munich.