The Healing of the Paralytic

c. 1560/1590

Against a landscape, a pale-skinned man walking hunched over as he carries a large bundle like pillows wrapped in a blanket on his back nearly fills this vertical painting. Close to us, the man walks to our right with his head down and his eyes closed or downcast under straight, furrowed brows. He has a wide, prominent nose, a brown beard, and close-cropped hair. With muscled forearms arms raised overhead, he clutches the forest-green cloth tied around the bundle, which has cloth with dark green stripes against cream white. The man wears a red, waist-length tunic over an ankle-length, bright white garment, which splits up the side to show his muscular legs and bare feet. He strides across a moss-green rock. On the far side of the rock on which he stands, to our left, a sand-brown path curves away from us to the wide, arched opening of a building. The structure has gray walls, possibly stone, with goldenrod-yellow paneling around the second story, and a red roof. At the arched opening, a couple dozen people, tiny in scale, gather around a person who stands and gestures with arm extended over a second person lying on a cloth. The four corners of the cloth are suspended by four ropes, barely visible, where the cloth had been lowered to the ground from above, presumably from the four people on the roof. The people in the crowd wear robes in mustard yellow, navy blue, plum purple, dark red, and white. Another building and a stone tower rise beyond the structure. To our right, the land dips down to the horizon line, which comes about a quarter of the way up the painting. People walk along the distant path that passes in front of a house at the foot of a steel-blue, rocky outcropping. A leafy tree grows where the road bends out of sight, and bands of white clouds stretch across the pale, muted turquoise sky.

Media Options

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On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 41

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on panel

  • Credit Line

    Chester Dale Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall: 107.8 x 76 cm (42 7/16 x 29 15/16 in.)
    framed: 136.5 x 109.8 cm (53 3/4 x 43 1/4 in.)

  • Accession

    1943.7.7

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

P.M. Turner [probably Percy Moore Turner], London; (sale, Christie's, London, 11 April 1924, no. 89, as by Jan van Hemessen, bought in by Lacey).[1] W. Lever, Esq. (Spink & Son Ltd., London);[2] (Ehrich Galleries, New York, by 1925); (their sale, American Art Association, Anderson Galleries Inc., New York, 18-19 April 1934, 1st day, no. 54, as by Jan van Hemessen); Chester Dale [1883-1962], New York; gift 1943 to NGA.
[1] The original note in the 1986 systematic catalogue is as follows: "The word Lacey is written in ink in the margin of the Library of Congress copy of the catalogue." A letter of 9 June 1988 from Martha Hepworth at the Getty Provenance Index (in NGA curatorial files) provided the additional information that the consignor to the 1924 sale was Turner, and that Lacey bought in the painting, it was not sold.
[2] The Lever name was placed between Ehrich Galleries and the 1934 sale in the 1986 systematic catalogue. However, the 1934 sale was a sale of Ehrich Galleries stock, and it is in the sale catalogue that the Lever name appears, indicating the Lever ownership came prior to that of Ehrich. Information contained in the Chester Dale papers (in NGA curatorial files) is somewhat contradictory, stating both that Ehrich purchased the painting from Spink and Son, who provided no history, as well as that the painting had been in the "former collection W. Lever, London". Other notes in the NGA curatorial file speculate without conclusion on the identity of "W. Lever". It seems probable that the ownership by Lever occurred prior to the painting's leaving England.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1965

  • The Chester Dale Bequest, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1965, unnumbered checklist.

Bibliography

1929

  • Wescher, Paul. "Einige neue Bilder zum Werk Jan van Hemessens." Belvedere 8 (1929): 40-41, repro.

1935

  • Tietze, Hans. Meisterwerke europäischer Malerei in Amerika. Vienna, 1935: repro. 150 (also Engl. ed. New York, 1939).

1943

  • Washington Times-Herald (18 July 1943): C-10.

  • Mechlin, Leila. "National Gallery Gets New Gifts from Chester Dale." Washington Sunday Star (11 July 1943): repro.

1962

  • Puyvelde, Leo van. La peinture flamande au siècle de Bosch et Breughel. Paris, 1962: 190.

1965

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 66, as Jan van Hemessen, "Arise, and Take Up Thy Bed, and Walk".

  • Paintings other than French in the Chester Dale Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 12, repro., as "Arise, and Take up thy Bed, and Walk" by Jan van Hemessen.

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 59, repro., as Jan van Hemessen, "Arise, and Take Up Thy Bed, and Walk".

1975

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 172, repro., as Jan van Hemessen, "Arise, and Take Up Thy Bed, and Walk".

1984

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 168, no. 188, color repro., as "Arise and take up thy bedand walk" by Jan van Hemessen.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 30, repro.

1986

  • Hand, John Oliver and Martha Wolff. Early Netherlandish Painting. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, 1986: 209-212, repro. 211.

1997

  • Southgate, M. Therese. The Art of JAMA: One Hundred Covers and Essays from The Journal of the American Medical Association. St. Louis, 1997: 52-53, color repro.

Wikidata ID

Q20176655

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