Christ at the pool of Bethesda

The figures in the present work are unusually elegant for a large-scale religious composition by Francesco Guardi, who Morassi considered an inferior figure painter to his brother, Gian Antonio. Despite Francesco's undoubted skills as a figure painter, familiar to any visitor to the National Gallery, Washington, Francesco came into his own as a veduta and subject painter after his brother's death. Indeed, this painting was once attributed to Sebastiano Ricci, but is considered by Morassi (op. cit., p.340) to be a work of exceptionally fine quality by Francesco and is characteristic of his mature style.

The subject of Christ at the Pool of Bethesda is the version of the 'Healing of the Paralytic' told in John's Gospel 5: 1-15. John's version of the miracle lays the scene in Jerusalem at the pool of Bethesda. The place was a resort for the sick since the waters were believed to have miraculous curative powers. It was said that from time to time an angel, traditionally the archangel Raphael, came and disturbed the water and that the first person to enter it afterwards was healed but the paralytic had never succeeded in being first. Christ came there and found him. He was ordered to take up his bed and walk and immediately found himself cured. John describes the setting as 'a place with five colonnades' and this is reflected in the current work by the colonnaded portico. In the current composition, Guardi depicts Christ addressing the cripple at the edge of the pool in front of a crowd of on-lookers.