1772.
1. The Good Samaritan; by Ravenet and Delatre.
In The Grub-Street Journal for July 14, 1737, appeared the following paragraph: "Yesterday the scaffolding was taken down from before the picture of The Good Samaritan,[1] painted by Mr. Hogarth, on the Stair Case in St. Bartholomew's Hospital, which is esteemed a very curious piece." Hogarth paid his friend Lambert for painting the landscape in this picture, and afterwards cleaned the whole at his own expence. To the imaginary merits of his coadjutor, the Analysis, p. 26, bears the following testimony: "The sky always gradates one way or other, and the rising or setting sun exhibits it in great perfection; the imitating of which was Claud de Lorain's peculiar excellence, and is now Mr. Lambert's."
[1] Of this picture Mr. S. Ireland has a sketch in oil.
2. The Pool of Bethesda; large, by Ravenet and Picot. A small one, by Ravenet, has been mentioned under 1748. Both very indifferent. Mr. Walpole justly observes, that "the burlesque turn of our artist's mind mixed itself with his most serious compositions; and that, in The Pool of Bethesda, a servant of a rich ulcerated lady, beats back a poor man [perhaps woman] who sought the same celestial remedy." To this remark I may add, that the figure of the priest, in The Good Samaritan, is supremely comic, and rather resembles some purse-proud burgomaster, than the character it was designed to represent.
On the top of the staircase at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, and just under the cornice, is the following inscription, "The historical paintings of this staircase were painted and given by Mr. William Hogarth, and the ornamental paintings at his expence, A. D. 1736." Both pictures, which appear of an oblong square in the engravings, in the originals are surrounded with scroll-work which cuts off the corners of them, &c. All these ornaments, together with compartments carved at the bottom, were the work of Mr. Richards. Mr. Boydell had the latter engraved on separate plates, appended to those above them, on which sufficient space had not been left.—Hogarth requested that these pictures might never be varnished. They appear therefore to disadvantage, the decorations about them having, within these few years past, been highly glazed. The Pool of Bethesda has suffered much from the sun; and The Good Samaritan, when lately cleaned, was pressed so hard against the straining frame, that several creases have been made in the canvas.