Paulus Heals the Cripple in Lystra

Around 1660 Karel Dujardin began painting large, colourful Bible pieces in an elegant style. Up until then he had done mainly Italianizing landscapes. The scene depicted here is taken from the life of the apostle Paul, who had fled with Barnabas to Lystra in southern Turkey. During one of his sermons Paul cured a crippled man, and the bystanders immediately concluded that the two men were gods. Dujardin's depiction of this scene is an impressive work: Paul towers over his audience, and they are gazing up at him in awe. Dujardin did not include the figure of Barnabas in the painting.

From the collection of H. Gockinga (Groningen), J.C. van Hattum van Ellewoutsdijk (The Hague) and B. Piaseka Johnson (Princeton). Purchased in 1997, with the support of the Vereniging Rembrandt, made possible in part by the Prins Bernhard Fonds and the Rijksmuseum Fonds.