The Good Samaritan

H.G. Frans was the first to distinguish the hand of this artist, who works in a style that is exceedingly close to Herri met de Bles, using the same iconography and drawing from the same sources of inspiration (H.G. Frans, Niederlandische Malerei im Zeitalter des Manierismus, Graz, 1969, pp. 80-81). As the artist at times also paints compositions that are entirely of his own invention, Luc Serck deemed it fit to give him a placeholder name inspired by one of his most celebrated works, The Flight into Egypt in the Statens Museum for Kunst in Copenhagen. Serck notes that this artist distinguishes himself from Herri met de Bles, favoring an arrangement of his figures and landscapes that is parallel to the picture plane, rather than along a diagonal axis. As seen in the present work, the artist also typically fills his paintings with dense, meticulously-rendered foliage leading to more schematically-described, monochromatic architecture in the background. A single, slender tree often bisects the painting. In this case, the tree serves as the anchor of the composition -- the injured traveler uses it to rest his head as he is healed by the Samaritan.

Notably, the palace, with its numerous biforate windows, dome and central tower, corresponds to a drawing in the so-called 'Antwerp Sketchbook' in the Kupferstichkabinett der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin (RKD no. 239362). Formerly attributed to Herri met de Bles himself, the sketchbook dates to the early 1540s and was likely produced by one of his associates or another artist in his circle (see L. Serck, 'L'Album Errera et le Recueil d'esquisses de Berlin dans leurs relations réciproques et leurs rapports avec Henri Bles', in J. Toussaint, Actes du colloque. Autour de Henri Bles, Namen 2002, p. 95-118). It contains several drawings that appear to have been used as models for several works by de Bles as well as by his contemporaries, as evidenced by the present painting.

We are grateful to Dr. Luc Serck for suggesting the attribution on the basis of photographs (private communication, 24 November 2023), and for generously sharing his research on the Master of the Copenhagen Flight into Egypt.