The Rest on the Flight into Egypt

Author: Surya Stemerding

This drawing of the Holy Family pausing on the flight to Egypt was inventoried in 1928 as a Correggio (c.1489-1534) on the evidence of an annotation on the verso, but later, in 1962, Philip Pouncey reassigned it to Camillo Procaccini.^[1] According to Ward Neilson (1979) it is very closely related in style to a pen drawing of the same subject by Procaccini in Paris and the print based on it, both of which are datable between 1587 and 1593.^[2] Neilson sees a close resemblance in the pose and form of the Christ Child, in the heads of Mary and Joseph, and in the draperies. Between 1580 and 1600 Procaccini made a series of prints of the Rest on the Flight into Egypt, but the Rotterdam drawing has no direct relationship with those prints.[3]

The Rotterdam sheet is not only close to the Paris drawing in style but also to other drawings by the artist. It is very skilfully executed in red chalk, with pronounced diagonal hatching and forceful shaded passages.

Judging by the verso the sheet is a fragment of what was originally a much larger piece of paper. The verso has a red chalk drawing of a head with portions of the chin and neck visible at lower right.