In a parable recounted in the New Testament, Christ described how a traveller, stripped and beaten half-dead by robbers, was saved by a Samaritan, while a Priest and a Levite 'passed by on the other side' (Luke 10: 25-38). The flasks in the painting are for the oil and wine which the Samaritan pours on the traveller's wounds. The distant city is the artist's native Bassano. This work is also known in other versions.