n he appears in the
foreground dressed as an artisan with an apron on, and with an axe in
his hand is shaping a plank of wood. Mary sits on one side spinning
with her distaff, and watching her Infant slumbering in its cradle.
Around this domestic group we have a crowd of ministering angels; some
of these little winged spirits are assisting Joseph, sweeping up the
chips and gathering them into baskets; others are merely "sporting at
their own sweet will." Several more dignified-looking angels, having
the air of guardian spirits, stand or kneel round the cradle, bending
over it with folded hands.[1]

[Footnote 1: In the famous set of wood cuts of the Life of the Virgin
Mary.]

In a Riposo by Titian, the Infant lies on a pillow on the ground, and
the Virgin is kneeling before him, while Joseph leans on his pilgrim's
staff, to which is suspended a wallet. In another, two angels,
kneeling, offer fruits in a basket; in the distance, a little angel
waters the ass at a stream. (All these are engraved.)

The angels, according to the legend, not only ministered to the Holy
Family, but pitched a tent nightly, in which they were sheltered.
Poussin, in an exquisite picture, has represented the Virgin and Child
reposing under a curtain suspended from the branches of a tree and
partly sustained by angels, while others, kneeling, offer fruit.
(Grosvenor Gal.)

Poussin is the only painter who has attempted to express the locality.
In one of his pictures the Holy Family reposes on the steps of an
Egyptian temple; a sphinx and a pyramid are visible in the background.
In another Riposo by the same master, an Ethiopian boy presents fruits
to the Infant Christ. Joseph is frequently asleep, which is hardly
consonant with the spirit of the older legends. It is, however, a
beautiful idea to make the Child and Joseph both reposing, while the
Virgin Mother, with eyes upraised to heaven, wakes and watches, as
in a picture by Mola (Louvre, 269); but a yet more beautiful idea to
represent the Virgin and Joseph sunk in sleep, while the divine Infant
lying in his mother's arms wakes and watches for both, with his little
hands joined in prayer, and his eyes fixed on the hovering angels or
the opening skies above.

In a Riposo by Rembrandt, the Holy Family rest by night, and are
illuminated only by a lantern suspended on the bough of a tree, the
whole group having much the air of a gypsy encampment. But one of
Rembrandt's imitators has in his own