The Holy Family with the Infant Saint John the Baptist on the return from Egypt

Some underdrawing is apparent in the sky and there is evidence of squaring up preparatory to the execution of the painting. According to the 1960 exhibition catalogue, Max J. Friedlnder proposed the attribution to Van Hemessen. The landscape may be the work of another hand. Van Hemessen's use of 'landscape specialists ... especially in his later years' has been discussed by Burr Wallen, Jan van Hemesssen An Antwerp Painter between Reform and Counter-Reform, Ann Arbor, 1983, pp. 88-95.