Claude has introduced the Flight of the Holy Family as a landscape group into nine different pictures.

THE REPOSE OF THE HOLY FAMILY.

Ital. Il Riposo. Fr. Le Repos de la Sainte Famille. Ger. Die Ruhe in AEgypten.

The subject generally styled a “Riposo” is one of the most graceful and most attractive in the whole range of Christian art.  It is not, however, an ancient subject, for I cannot recall an instance earlier than the sixteenth century; it had in its accessories that romantic and pastoral character which recommended it to the Venetians and to the landscape-painters of the seventeenth century, and among these we must look for the most successful and beautiful examples.

I must begin by observing that it is a subject not only easily mistaken by those who have studied pictures; but perpetually misconceived and misrepresented by the painters themselves.  Some pictures which erroneously bear this title, were never intended to do so.  Others, intended to represent the scene, are disfigured and perplexed by mistakes arising either from the ignorance or the carelessness of the artist.

We must bear in mind that the Riposo, properly so called, is not merely the Holy Family seated in a landscape; it is an episode of the Flight into Egypt, and is either the rest on the journey, or at the close of the journey; quite different scenes, though all go by the same name.  It is not an ideal religious group, but a reality, a possible and actual scene; and it is clear that the painter, if he thought at all, and did not merely set himself to fabricate a pretty composition, was restricted within the limits of the actual and possible, at least according to the histories and traditions of the time.  Some of the accessories introduced would stamp the intention at once; as the date tree, and Joseph gathering dates; the ass feeding in the distance; the wallet and pilgrim’s staff laid beside Joseph; the fallen idols; the Virgin scooping water from a fountain; for all these are incidents which properly belong to the Riposo.

It is nowhere recorded; either in Scripture or in the legendary stories, that Mary and Joseph in their flight were accompanied by Elizabeth and the little St. John; therefore, where either of these are introduced, the subject is not properly a Riposo, whatever the intention of the painter may have been:  the personages ought to be restricted to the Virgin, her Infant, and St. Joseph, with attendant angels.  An old woman is sometimes introduced, the same who is traditionally supposed to have accompanied them in their flight.  If this old woman be manifestly St. Anna or St. Elizabeth, then it is not a Riposo, but merely a Holy Family.

It is related that the Holy Family finally rested, after their long journey, in the village of Matarea, beyond the city of Hermopolis (or Heliopolis), and took up their residence in a grove of sycamores, a circumstance which gave the sycamore tree a sort of religions interest in early Christian times.  The crusaders imported it into Europe; and poor Mary Stuart may have had this idea, or this feeling when she brought from France, and planted in her garden, the first sycamores which grew in Scotland.