Art Institute of Chicago

The Good Samaritan

Rodolphe Bresdin

Date

1861

Medium

Lithograph on white China paper laid down on white wove paper

Culture

France

Department

Prints and Drawings

Institution

Art Institute of Chicago

Considered the masterwork of Bresdin' s career and one of the outstanding lithographs of the nineteenth century, The Good Samaritan relates the parable of the heathen who aided an injured traveller, whom a priest and a Levite had passed by with averted eyes. The work was first exhibited in the state-sponsored Salon of 1861 under the title Abd el-Kader aiding a Christian, in reference to the Muslim hero who personally saved thousands of Christians from Syrian aggression in 1860. While the event surely parallels the biblical tale, Bresdin probably alluded to the well-known contemporary figure of Abd el-Kader as a means to popularize his own religious imagery. Indeed, the print was so well received that it was published in a series of editions, at such profit to the artist that he later referred to the print as "my good Samaritan." This proof was printed early in the first edition, before the lithographic stone began to deteriorate, and is one of the most crisp and successful existing impressions of the print.

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