A winged angel leads a donkey bearing the Virgin and Child over a low bridge, with St Joseph following on foot. The scene takes place in a landscape, with rocks and a waterfall at the right and a view of buildings and distant mountains at the left. The subject of the Holy Family's flight into Egypt is based on Matthew 2.13-15, amplified by the apocryphal Infancy Gospels.

This work forms an obvious pair with RCIN 403556. Both signed by the artist, they are typical examples of Bottani's work, and pay homage to the seventeenth-century landscape tradition of Claude and Gaspar Poussin. In the figures there is apparent some influence of Maratti. Both paintings are in very good condition, and may have been commissioned by Richard Dalton in Rome in 1763-4.