Public collection via the Cleveland Museum of Art
AT-00009184About the Artwork
When King Herod learned that he would lose his throne to a child born in Bethlehem, he ordered all male infants to be massacred. Mary and Joseph thus fled to Egypt to protect their son, Jesus. The age of the boy in this painting suggests that Poussin depicted the less-common subject of the Holy Family’s return from Egypt. Jesus reaches toward a vision of a cross borne by angels, a reference to both his eventual crucifixion and Herod’s cruel slaughter of innocent children.
Provenance
1953-: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio 1953: (Rosenberg and Stiebel, New York, NY, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art) 1952-1953: Frederick Mont and Newhouse Galleries, New York, NY, sold to Rosenberg and Stiebel)1 By 1733-1952: Princes of Liechtenstein, Vienna, and later, Vaduz1
Exhibition history
The Venetian Tradition. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (November 8, 1956-January 1, 1957). In Memoriam: Leonard C. Hanna, Jr.. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (March 4-April 7, 1958). The Arts of Man. The Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, TX (organizer) (October 4-November 15, 1962). Poussin. Dulwich Picture Gallery (organizer) (February 16-April 30, 1995). The First Roman Years of Nicolas Poussin. Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome (November 26, 1998-March 1, 1999). The Triumph of French Painting: Seventeenth Century Masterpieces from the Museums of FRAME [FRAME]. Portland Art Museum, Portland, OR (organizer) (October 11, 2003-January 4, 2004); Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, AL (January 25-April 11, 2004); Meadows Museum (April 30-July 25, 2004). Object Lessons: France in the Golden Age. Timken Museum of Art, San Diego, CA (organizer) (February 14-June 3, 2012).
Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Quick Overview
- Artist
- Nicolas Poussin (French, 1594–1665)
- Date
- c. 1627
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- Framed: 159.5 x 124 x 14.5 cm (62 13/16 x 48 13/16 x 5 11/16 in.); Unframed: 134 x 99 cm (52 3/4 x 39 in.)
- Type
- Painting
- Classification
- Painting
- Department
- European Painting and Sculpture
- Credit line
- Gift of the Hanna Fund
- Accession no.
- 1953.156
More by Nicolas Poussin in museum collections
Open-access museum record · AT-00009184
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