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Dream of Saint Joseph

ca. 1624–26
Not on view
Returned to lender
This work of art was on loan to the museum and has since been returned to its lender.
An angel appears to Joseph in a dream, urging him to take Mary and Jesus and flee into Egypt. In the seventeenth century, Joseph became a paradigm of the guardian-father. Here, Valentin employs touch to enhance the physicality of the figures. One scholar has alluded to the importance of the notion of God’s grace in such a picture, to "the heavenly apparition at the very moment when, incapable of rising to the truths of the Spirit, exhausted by the effort, man falls back in his torpor."

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Dream of Saint Joseph
  • Artist: Valentin de Boulogne (French, Coulommiers-en-Brie 1591–1632 Rome)
  • Date: ca. 1624–26
  • Medium: Oil on canvas
  • Dimensions: 44 7/8 × 36 1/4 in. (114 × 92 cm)
  • Classification: Paintings
  • Credit Line: Private collection
  • Curatorial Department: European Paintings