The Good Samaritan, Master of the Good Samaritan, 1537
oil on panel, h 74.7cm × w 86cm × t 6.5cm Catalogue entry
Loving one’s fellow man is more important than religious belief, that is the message here: a pious man from Samaria – with turban – comforts a man who has just been violently robbed. The biblical story describes how two Jewish priests had walked past the half-dead victim. By depicting one of these (front right) as a Christian monk, the artist was clearly levelling criticism at the Catholic Church of his own time.
