Pier Francesco Mola (1612 – 1666), Bottega di, Workshop of - Riposo dalla Fuga in Egitto

Bottega of Pier Francesco Mola (Coldrerio, 1612 – Rome, 1666)
Rest during the Flight into Egypt
Oil on canvas, 29 x 45 cm – with frame, 51 x 67 cm
Inscription on the back on the frame “By F. Mola"

This refined oil-on-canvas composition, produced within Pier Francesco Mola’s workshop, translates the sacred theme of Rest during the Flight into Egypt into a dimension of pastoral, idyllic serenity. The scene, intimate and compact, shows the Virgin Mary seated on a rock while nursing the Child with a gesture of deep tenderness; beside her, the presence of a pitcher and a bundle recalls the ordinary, humble dimension of the journey. Saint Joseph, captured in a moment of quiet, rests on the rocky ground and turns his gaze toward a small cloud from which emerge three cherubs, the only element that reunites the earthly scene with the divine plane. In the background, a donkey grazes among the foliage, while the landscape opens onto bluish hills and distant mountains, suggesting a atmospheric depth that envelops the figures.

Pier Francesco Mola, born in Coldrerio in 1612 and largely trained in Rome, was a protagonist of the Seicento capable of fusing Bologna’s classicism, as expressed by Albani and Guercino, with the rich chromaticity of Venetian origin observed in the works of Titian and the Bassanos. His skill in creating landscapes with figures made him famous among the Roman aristocracy, for his works were not merely biblical illustrations but poetic reflections on the relationship between man and the environment. The painting under consideration perfectly reflects this poetics, and its existence is justified within the complex organization of the workshops of the time. The autograph prototype of this composition, today exhibited at the National Gallery in London, served as a reference model that the master made available to collaborators to meet an ever-growing market demand. The creation of multiple versions of the same work was in fact a common practice: it allowed offering paintings of quality at different prices, and at the same time functioned as a pedagogical exercise for the students, who learned the craft by copying the master’s inventions. The quality of this workshop version emerges strongly when set against other museum-masterworks by Mola, where the dialogue between figure and landscape follows similar patterns. In the San Gerolamo in Meditation kept at the Palazzo Pitti, the same sensitivity is found in the handling of rocks and vegetation, struck by a vibrant light that defines the volumes in a nearly tactile way. A similarly significant comparison is with the Christ and the Samaritan at the Well in the Bristol Museum and Art Gallery, where the monumental yet intimate arrangement of the protagonists and the warm chromatic drafting directly recall the harmony of the Rest analyzed here. Finally, the capacity to integrate sacred storytelling into a broad and evocative horizon is seen in The Prophet Elisha and the Shunamite Woman at the Ringling Museum in Florida, an work in which nature ceases to be mere scenery to participate in the characters’ emotional state. Ultimately, this canvas represents a significant chapter in the diffusion of Mola’s style, testifying how his vision of the Arcadian landscape found fertile ground among a band of collaborators capable of replicating that sense of sacred quiet and natural beauty that constitutes the painter’s highest hallmark, turning this small scene into a precious testimony of seventeenth-century collecting and devotion.

The frame is provided as a complimentary gift; consequently it cannot be a ground for return or complaint.

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