Terugkeer uit Egypte

The Virgin Mary sits in a small ferry boat holding the Christ Child, accompanied by Saint Joseph, a donkey, and several attendants. Two ferrymen navigate the vessel across a river while a vast landscape of jagged mountains and a fortified city stretches into the background. The scene is rendered with the characteristic crowded composition and elongated figures of the late Mannerist style.

Aegidius Sadeler was the most influential engraver of the Rudolfine court in Prague, a center for late Renaissance Hermeticism and alchemy. This work represents the intersection of traditional religious narrative and the sophisticated Mannerist aesthetic favored by the intellectual circle surrounding Emperor Rudolf II.