The Miracle of the Palm Tree on the Flight into Egypt

Spanish, 1490-1510
Walnut, gesso, polychromy, and gilding
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

This sculpture illustrates an episode in The Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, chapter 20. On the way to Egypt the Holy Family stops under a palm tree and Mary wishes she could have some of its fruit. The child Jesus then tells the tree to bow down. It does, and the family gathers the fruit.

According to the museum, "The composition follows closely an engraving by Schongauer, dated about 1476." The engraving is in the Cleveland Museum of Art (accession 1954.260).

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Photographed at the museum by Richard Stracke, shared under Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license.