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Landscape with the Flight into Egypt
Herri met de Bles (Flemish, 1508–1551)
1500-1550
- Medium
- Oil on panel
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- width 65.5 cm, height 45.5 cm, height 36 cm, width 57 cm
- Culture
- Flemish
- Museum
- SMK – National Gallery of Denmark
- Rights
- Public Domain Mark: SMK waives its rights in this photograph, as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the SMK – National Gallery of Denmark
About this work
A tree in the middle of the painting divides the vast mountain landscape into two halves: the good and holy on one side and the evil and dissolute on the other. The drawing's motif On a small path in the foreground to the left Joseph is seen following Mary riding on a donkey holding the Infant Jesus in her arms. Their piety and spiritual demeanour causes a gilt statue of a heathen god to tumble to the ground as they pass it by. In the middle ground to the right a merry company comes riding in a cart. Their doings denounce them as the advocates of the Seven Deadly Sins. For example, the company is led by a man playing the bagpipes – a symbol of infidelity. Herri met de Bles and Herry de Patenier Herri met de Bles is believed to be the same person as a Herry de Patenier who was received as a master of the St. Luke’s Guild in Antwerp in 1535. He may have been related to his great idol Joachim Patenier (ca. 1480-1524), who can be credited with establishing a canon for the so-called ”Weltlandschaft” in which the eye is led through a wide panoramic landscape ranging from warm brown colours in the foreground to cool greens and distant blues.
