Holy Family with St Elizabeth and the Child John

Sébastien Bourdon was a skilful painter who worked in almost all genres – historical scenes, genre-painting, portrait and landscape – both on canvas and as decorative works. For an art dealer in Rome, he painte pictures in the styles of Lorrain, Sacchi, van Laer, Castiglione, Poussin and Ludovico Carracci.
His paintings are characterised by unusual colouration and ingenious lighting, as the Salzburg painting shows. It shows the Holy Family resting during their flight to Egypt, and their encounter with St. Elizabeth and the boy John. (Mt 2, 13–15)
The lighting makes Mary and Jesus stand out, almost like a paper-cut, and accentuated by means of colour. The artist works with strong contrasts and different levels, by juxtaposing the bright blue, red and white of the clothing and the pale flesh tone of the skin with the hazy, earthcoloured surroundings. Only the child John, holding out the cross to Christ for his future suffering, and Joseph who, after their long walk, is kneeling to fill a bowl with water, are marked out by a weaker beam of light. Bourdon used light and colour to model the human body.
The background is a ruinous, not clearly defined landscape, sketched with swift brushstrokes on the right-hand side. The half-dilapidated pyramid on the left could be a reference to the Pyramid of Cestius in Rome. The Roman enthusiasm for Egypt at the time of Emperor Augustus led Caius Cestius, praetor and tribune of the people, to construct a tomb for himself in the form of a pyramid (before 12 BC) on the road to Ostia.

HABERSATTER Thomas: Sébastien Bourdon, Holy family with St. Elizabeth and the child John, in: DUCKE Astrid, HABERSATTER Thomas, OEHRING Erika: Masterworks. Residenzgalerie Salzburg. Salzburg 2015, p. 118