Landscape with the Parable of the Good Samaritan

Author: Albert J. Elen

Bol has depicted an overwhelming imaginary dune landscape, with lower grounds beyond, apparently inspired by the coastal area along the North Sea, as a stage with many natural wings for the depiction of several scenes from the parable of the Good Samaritan, told by Jesus, and described in the canonic Gospel of Luke (10:25-37). The landscape, which should be situated somewhere between Jerusalem and Jericho, is also anachronistic in that it shows three church spires in the background. The ordinance of the dunes offers a spatial division for the scenes. On the right in the foreground the main scene is depicted, although it is small in relation to the background, and is therefore not immediately recognizable: the Samaritan tending to the injured stranger, a Jewish traveller beaten and stripped of his clothes by the two robbers taking off to the side at lower left, and disregarded by the two persons who just passed by, a priest and a Levite. They are continuing their journey along the main path to the left. The next scene in the story is also depicted on the right in the middle ground, where the Samaritan is taking the victim away on horseback, heading for the farm further away or to the village in the centre background, beyond the gallows-field, which will possibly be the final destination of the criminals.

This is a design for one of a series of eight prints of landscapes with various biblical subjects, published by Johannes Sadeler (1550-1600), who was probably also the engraver.¹ The reverse side of the sheet has been prepared red for the transfer of the composition to the copper plate. The main contours of the composition were traced with a stylus, leaving no visual marks but the indentation which can only be seen by raking light and with the use of a magnifying glass. The mirror-image print differs from the drawing in that the traveller taken away on horseback and the two departing robbers have been omitted—the traveller replaced by bushes—concentrating on the actual subject.²

Bol has depicted the subject of the Good Samaritan more than once. The earliest is a drawing dated 1567, in which the victim is tended by the Samaritan, the horse standing by.³ The entire history is illustrated in a set of six prints, after Bol’s designs, published in or around 1572 by Chrispijn de Passe.⁴ Two preliminary drawings for this series, both dated 1572, are in Vienna.⁵ In one the victim is being robbed of his cloths, in the other the wounded man is carried away on horseback by the samaritan. The figure group of the victim attended by the samaritan, the horse standing by, very similar to the Rotterdam drawing and in the same direction, is found in another scene in this series.⁶ Other figures are found in a print with the parable of the Good Samaritan, engraved by Adriaen Collaert after a design by Hans Bol, which is part of a series of landscapes with biblical and hunting scenes published by Eduard van Hoeswinckel in Antwerp four years after the present drawing: the walking figure seen in the back at lower left and the group of the victim carried away on horseback are very similar to those in the Rotterdam drawing.⁷ Obviously, with the prints ready to hand, and probably separate sketches and studies as well, Bol had a stock of figural motifs at his disposal which he used to populate his landscapes, varying poses, gestures and other details.