Landscape with the Flight into Egypt
- Artist: Pieter Bruegel the Elder
- Date: 1563
- Medium: oil on panel
- Museum: The Courtauld Gallery
- Collection record: The Courtauld Gallery website
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About this artwork
This is the "Landscape with the Flight into Egypt" by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Painted in 1563 in oil on panel, the artist throws the familiar biblical tale onto a dramatic European backdrop that feels almost like a sketch of the Alps. Bruegel packs the canvas with tiny, impossible details that invite a second look. In the left foreground, three men huddle over a shaky, rope‑tight bridge as they cross a sheer precipice, a subtle nod to the hardships ahead. On the right side, a small idol slips from a shrine perched on a dead tree trunk, a visual metaphor for abandoning pagan worship as the Holy Family heads toward safety.
Originally created for the politician and collector Cardinal Granvelle, the work later passed into the hands of Peter Paul Rubens, whose paintings you’ll see just beyond this doorway. Bruegel’s keen eye for human frailty and the natural world combines to make this small but mighty canvas a vivid snapshot of faith, journey, and the tension between the old and the new.
See it in person
Landscape with the Flight into Egypt hangs in The Courtauld Gallery at Somerset House, London. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
