The Good Samaritan

Jacopo Bassano painted the parable of the Good Samaritan more than once. This version dates from around 1562 or 1563, and it catches the moment the Samaritan heaves the wounded traveller up onto his mule. The figures are large and pressed close to the front of the picture, and two dogs are licking the man's blood from the ground. Far behind, small on the road, the priest and the Levite who passed him by are walking away. The light is the grey of first light, just touching the foothills under thick cloud. The picture has a long English history. Sir Joshua Reynolds, the first president of the Royal Academy, owned it, and in 1791 he put it on show in an exhibition of his collection held to benefit his servant Ralph. It later belonged to the poet and collector Samuel Rogers, and at the sale after his death, in 1856, the National Gallery bought it for 230 guineas.