The Good Samaritan attending the Wounded Traveller at the Inn
Giovanni Battista Langetti (Genoa 1635 - Venice 1676)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
1655 - 1676
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
1511 x 2057 mm (59 1/2 x 81 in)
Place of origin
Venice
Order this imageCollection
Osterley Park and House, London
NT 771302
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, The Good Samaritan attending the Wounded Traveller at the Inn by Giovanni Battista Langetti (Genoa 1635 - Venice 1676). A wounded man, seen three-quarter length, turned to the left, is wearing a loin cloth and tended by an older man in a red cloak, behind them two other figures are open mouthed, while a third assists the Good Samaritan. Langetti became the leader of the so-called Venetian Tenebrists - painters employing earthy realism and strong chiaroscuro, ultimately derived, through Luca Giordano, from Caravaggio - who included other immigrants, such as the Modenese Antonio Zanchi and the German, Johann Carl Loth. Death and suicides were a particular predilection of his, but their precise protagonists are sometimes ambiguous. There are other versions of this subject in the Musee des Beaux-Arts in Lyons, and the Holburne of Menstrie Museum in Bath, the latter being upright
Provenance
Sir Francis Dashwood (1708-1781), at West Wycome Park, and thence by descent; purchased at auction by the National Trust, 1986, with the help of grant from the Art Fund (then called the National Art Collections Fund); on display at Hatchlands and Clandon Park and at Osterley Park since 1991.
Makers and roles
Giovanni Battista Langetti (Genoa 1635 - Venice 1676), artist