From next 10 October , for the first time, at the Pinacoteca of the Civic Museum “Ala Ponzone” in Cremona, two versions of the Rest on the Flight into Egypt, masterpieces by Orazio Gentileschi, can be admired side by side. In an extraordinary exhibition, curated by Mario Marubbi, Conservator of the Pinacoteca, and promoted by the Municipality of Cremona through its Civic Museums. Alongside the two magnificent canvases, the first from the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna and the second from a private collection, the exhibition offers a selection of other paintings, sculptures, ivories, engravings on the popular "Fugue" handed down only by the Gospel of Matthew but the protagonist of the apocryphal Gospels .

Two identical canvases, by Orazio Gentileschi , made one after the other, dedicated to the story of the “ Rest during the flight into Egypt ”. A theme that, as splendidly recreated by Gentileschi, fascinated several clients. So much so that, alongside the two versions reunited in Cremona, two other versions are known, one in the Louvre and the second in the Birmingham Museum. Paintings that are recognized as among the most intriguing of the early Italian seventeenth century.

The two versions exhibited at the Ala Ponzone date back to the time when Orazio Gentileschi - perhaps the most precocious, intelligent and unscrupulous interpreter among the Caravaggesque painters - enjoyed enormous international fame. Fame increased in Paris, where he was called to the court of Marie de 'Medici, and expanded in London where he was called by George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham.