Camerano-Rome, 1625 -1713 · Great Roman style and elegant devotion

Mary entrusts the Child to Joseph during the flight: Maratti suspends the journey to make a family handover the center of a sacred composition.

Carlo Maratti, also called Carlo Maratta, was born in Camerano in 1625 and died in Rome in 1713. Trained with Andrea Sacchi, he became the main representative of Roman classicism of the second half of the 17th century. His altarpieces, Virgins, portraits and drawings reconcile clarity inherited from Raphael, nobility of gestures and baroque sumptuousness. The Flight into Egypt of the collection belongs to a subject of which Maratti developed several versions. Around 1661, Pope Alexander VII Chigi commissioned an altarpiece from him for the Cappella del Voto in Siena Cathedral; the success of the invention also led to a small version on copper intended for the pontifical chamber. The unusual gesture where Mary hands the Child over to Joseph gives the story concrete intimacy. This invention was sometimes even misunderstood, Joseph being taken for Saint Christopher. In Maratti, the danger of flight remains out of scope: it is trust, help and family continuity that occupy the foreground. The "Carlo Maratti" selection notably compares The Flight into Egypt. His reading favors the material.

The sacred journey stops for a moment: the hand that entrusts the Child is enough to tell of confidence in the midst of danger.