Christ Healing the Lame Man

John's Gospel describes a pool in Jerusalem called Bethesda, ringed by porches full of the sick, who waited for the water to stir, because the first one in was said to be healed. One man there had been ill for 38 years. Jesus asks him whether he wants to be made well, and the man answers that whenever the water moves, someone else gets down ahead of him. Bassano paints that exchange, the talking before the miracle, and carries the story through glances and gestures passing from one figure to the next. The ragged strokes that make the cloth are his own way of handling paint, and the museum dates the canvas to about 1568 to 1571. By 1693 it was in the Palazzo Borghese in Rome, listed as a miracle of Christ with several figures, with a Circumcision by Bassano as its companion. Camillo Borghese sold the pair in 1801, and both ended up in England at Leigh Court near Bristol. At a Christie's sale in 1899 this one went for 10 guineas. When it surfaced at auction in Monaco in 1988, it was catalogued as the work of Jacopo's son Francesco. The Museum of Fine Arts bought it in 1989 as Jacopo's own.