Antonio da Correggio (active 1494; died 1534)

The Madonna of the Basket, c. 1524. The National Gallery, London By Caroline Shaw

In this charming scene, Correggio uses his much-admired gentleness to evoke a tender image of the Holy Family, and to immortalize in the most delightful way a seemingly ordinary, fleeting moment in the infancy of Our Lord. We see Our Lady, dressed in robes of old rose, sitting outdoors under a tree and gazing lovingly down at her son as she struggles, with some amusement, to fit a blue jacket onto the wriggling baby. Our Lord twists and fidgets, and seems to call out, as He reaches for the sun-dappled leaves. His mother holds His hands steady and tries to push the sleeve down along His arm. To her left lies a workbasket containing blue thread and a pair of scissors, indicating that it was Our Lady herself who made this little blue jacket which, touchingly, looks a little too large for Him.

This scene will strike a chord with every mother. It is an intimate yet ravishing image that captures the essence of what it is to be a mother: the ordinary tasks that she must always perform with love; the heroic patience that is required of her at every moment; the unutterable joy of gazing down at the precious bundle in her arms, as she tenderly murmurs encouragement and words of love to her baby. However, as with all scenes of Our Lady with the infant Jesus, there is a sorrow that is ever-present: we can never forget as we look at this image, that Our Lord’s outstretched arms foreshadow those of the Crucifixion, and that Our Lady tenderly cradling her infant son on her knee is a prefiguring of the terrible moment when she will hold Our Lord’s lifeless, crucified body in her lap on the evening of Good Friday. The pierced heart of Our Lady is never far from the surface.

Correggio’s The Madonna of the Basket: a charming and tender image of the everyday life of Mary, Joseph and Jesus

In the background, as if in a haze of dust in the sunshine, we see St Joseph in his workshop, his sleeves rolled up and head down as he works hard at the plane. He too is performing his duties, as a father and head of the household, providing for his precious family, and doing it always with patience and love.

This charming and tender image of the everyday life of Mary, Joseph and Jesus takes on a greater significance when we consider where it was that Our Lord passed the early years of His life. For they were not spent in the safety of the Holy Land, but in Egypt, where the Holy Family was forced to flee after Herod gave his monstrous decree to slay all first-born sons of Israel. Opinions vary as to the exact length of time that the Holy Family stayed in Egypt, but the general tradition, certainly among Coptic Christian writers, is that it was around four years.

Perhaps surprisingly, images of the Holy Family’s everyday life in Egypt are fairly rare in western art. We are much more familiar with images of the journey itself, the ‘Flight into Egypt’. Artists throughout the centuries have enjoyed depicting the landscape and the miracles that occurred along the way, which were recorded in various apocryphal writings: the palm tree that bent down to offer Our Lady shade and fruit when the family stopped to rest; the water that sprang up to quench their thirst, wild animals becoming tame and bandits turning to acts of kindness. Perhaps the most important event to be recorded was that of the idols of Egypt crashing to the ground as the Holy Family passed a temple, much to the anger of the priest, who was, however, instantly converted. This was a fulfillment of the prophecy of Isaiah: “see the Lord rides on a swift cloud and is coming to Egypt. The idols of Egypt tremble before him… On that day there shall be an altar to the Lord in the land of Egypt.”

At the time, there were two main roads from Israel to Egypt. The easier, and therefore the most-travelled route, passed through Gaza and ran south along the Mediterranean coast. The other route, less used and therefore more secure, passed through Hebron and Bersabee, into the Sinai peninsula and thence across the desert to the shores of the Nile. In either case, it would have been a long and arduous journey. Many Coptic monasteries, shrines, churches and pilgrimage sites commemorate the Holy Family’s journey and the places that they are believed to have stayed, such as the rock at Sakha, which is believed to contain an impression of the baby Jesus’ foot, and the fourth century church of SS Sergius and Bacchus in Coptic Cairo which, according to tradition, is built on the site of one of the homes of the Holy Family.

It seems very likely that Our Lady and St Joseph would have avoided staying in a pagan area, and would have looked for a Jewish settlement: the broad delta of the Nile sheltered many Jewish communities, where Joseph could have found employment to support his family, and where they could practise their faith and live in relative peace.

Correggio’s masterpiece gives us a powerful image of the Holy Family during the ‘hidden life’ of Our Lord. We see Mary and Joseph creating a peaceful home for their son, while being constantly aware of potential dangers; the insecurity of being strangers in a foreign land. They did not know how long they would be there, but they trusted in God and were at peace. This beautiful painting inspires us to imitate the hidden life of Our Lord. We do this when we transform our homes into domestic churches, when we fulfill our everyday duties with patience, and offer up our private sufferings in reparation for the sins of the world. Hiddenness, solitude, silence, ordinary tasks performed with great love, this is the life that the Holy Family lived in Egypt, and it is the life that we are asked to live every day.