The Work
Doré's Flight into Egypt (from La Sainte Bible, 1866) depicts the Holy Family journeying at night through a desolate rocky landscape - Joseph leading a donkey bearing Mary and the infant Jesus, an angel preceding them through the darkness. The moonlit wilderness creates an atmosphere of vulnerability and providential protection simultaneously.
Biblical Source
Matthew 2:14 - "So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt" - narrates the escape from Herod's massacre of the Bethlehem infants. Matthew reads the flight as fulfillment of Hosea 11:1: "When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son" - the Exodus pattern repeated: God's son in Egypt, called out to fulfillment.
Artist and Iconography
Doré's plate became the standard Victorian illustration of the Infancy narrative's dark side - the flight, the massacre, the refugee family. The angel preceding them in the darkness visualizes divine protection in a specifically Exodus mode (the pillar of cloud/fire preceding Israel). The infant Jesus, invisible under Mary's cloak, is protected by layers of human and divine care simultaneously.