Landscape with the Good Samaritan

Catalogue number: Bredius 442.

In the 1630s, landscapes was to remain in the background of Rembrandt's biblical paintings. The landscape backgrounds in these paintings - views through on the left, punctuated by impressive buildings - succeed in varying measure in avoiding the feel of a backdrop rather than real space. For the first time in the Landscape with the Good Samaritan are the figures of a biblical story truly immersed in the world.

The figural scene refers to the parable in the Gospel of St Luke on the Good Samaritan who cared for the wounded man lying by the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. The painting was looted by the Germans in 1939 and recovered by Karol Estreicher in 1946.