Loading...
This is a condensed version in vertical format of the Adoration of the Magi at the Galleria Borghese in Rome (inv. 150), a painting that is difficult to attribute and which Arslan believed to be by Francesco and Rearick by Leandro, though Ballarin ascribed it to Jacopo, dating it around 1576. The inferior quality of the Prado painting, which is signed by Francesco, supports Ballarin´s hypothesis.
Unlike the adoration of the shepherds, which took place at night according to the gospel account, the nocturnal setting for the Holy Family´s flight into Egypt was an invention of the painter, since Mathew 2: 13-15 narrates how an angel appeared to Joseph in a dream and warned him that the child was in danger, but does not state that the Family departed at night or preferred to leave at sunset. In
