Near to this village of Matarea, a fountain miraculously sprung up for the refreshment of the Holy Family.  It still exists, as we are informed by travellers, and is still styled by the Arabs, “The Fountain of Mary."[1] This fountain is frequently represented, as in the well-known Riposo by Correggio, where the Virgin is dipping a bowl into the gushing stream, hence called the “Madonna della Scodella” (Parma):  in another by Baroccio (Grosvenor Gal.), and another by Domenichino (Louvre, 491).

[Footnote 1:  The site of this fountain is about four miles N.E. of Cairo.]

In this fountain, says another legend, Mary washed the linen of the Child.  There are several pictures which represent the Virgin washing linen in a fountain; for example, one by Lucio Massari, where, in a charming landscape, the little Christ takes the linen out of a basket, and Joseph hangs it on a line to dry. (Florence Gal.)

The ministry of the angels is here not only allowable, but beautifully appropriate; and never has it been more felicitously and more gracefully expressed than in a little composition by Lucas Cranach, where the Virgin and her Child repose under a tree, while the angels dance in a circle round them.  The cause of the Flight—­the Massacre of the Innocents—­is figuratively expressed by two winged boys, who, seated on a bough of the tree, are seen robbing a nest, and wringing the necks of the nestlings, while the parent-birds scream and flutter over their heads:  in point of taste, this significant allegory had been better omitted; it spoils the harmony of composition.  There is another similar group, quite as graceful, by David Hopfer.  Vandyck seems to have had both in his memory when he designed the very beautiful Riposo so often copied and engraved (Coll. of Lord Ashburton); here the Virgin is seated under a tree, in an open landscape, and holds her divine Child; Joseph, behind, seems asleep; in front of the Virgin, eight lovely angels dance in a round, while others, seated in the sky, make heavenly music.

In another singular and charming Riposo by Lucas Cranach, the Virgin and Child are seated under a tree; to the left of the group is a fountain, where a number of little angels appear to be washing linen; to the right, Joseph approaches leading the ass, and in the act of reverently removing his cap.

There is a Riposo by Albert Durer which I cannot pass over.  It is touched with all that homely domestic feeling, and at the same time all that fertility of fancy, which are so characteristic of that extraordinary man.  We are told that when Joseph took up his residence at Matarea in Egypt, he provided for his wife and Child by exercising his trade as a carpenter.  In this composition he appears in the foreground dressed as an artisan with an apron on, and with an axe in his hand is shaping a plank of wood.  Mary sits on one side spinning with her distaff, and watching her Infant slumbering in its cradle.  Around this domestic group we have a crowd of ministering angels; some of these little winged spirits are assisting Joseph, sweeping up the chips and gathering them into baskets; others are merely “sporting at their own sweet will.”  Several more dignified-looking angels, having the air of guardian spirits, stand or kneel round the cradle, bending over it with folded hands.[1]