ADVENT CALENDAR 2022
Flight into Egypt scene from a 15th-century Flemish Book of Hours. Glencairn Museum collection, Bryn Athyn, PA, 07.MS.639a.
21. THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT FROM A BOOK OF HOURS
This scene of the Flight into Egypt (Matthew 2:13–23) is from a page in a 15th-century Flemish medieval prayer book known as the Book of Hours. According to Matthew, after the visit of the Wise Men, “an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying, ‘Arise, take the young Child and His mother, flee to Egypt, and stay there until I bring you word; for Herod will seek the young Child to destroy Him’” (2:13). Although the Bible provides very little information about this episode in the Nativity narrative, it is frequently depicted in art.
The landscape in this illustration of the Flight into Egypt is rocky, with brown ground and palm trees, so the setting may be intended to evoke travel through the desert.
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