Gustave Moreau French, 1826-1898

Edmond Taigny (purchased from the artist in January 1881)
Galerie Bernard, Paris (by 1972)

Paris, Exposition Universelle Centennale, 1900
Paris, Galerie Georges Petit, Gustave Moreau, 1906, no. 201

Jean Laran and Léon Deshairs, Gustave Moreau, Paris, 1913, pp. 59-60, reproduced as plate XXII
Pierre-Louis Mathieu, Gustave Moreau: sa vie, son oeuvre; catalogue raisonné de l'oeuvre achevé, Paris, 1976, p. 309, no. 123, catalogued and illustrated
Pierre-Louis Matthieu, Gustave Moreau. Monographie et nouveau catalogue de l'oeuvre achevé, Paris-Courbevoie, 1998, p. 317, no. 141, catalogued and illustrated
Geneviève Lacambre ed., Gustave Moreau, Between Epic and Dream, exh. cat., The Art Institute of Chicago, 1999, pp. 191-92 & 298, mentioned

Executed circa 1870.

Moreau’s work often revolves around dualities such as an opposition of male and female and good and evil. While women in his paintings mostly personify evil, men generally symbolise good. Within this context, Moreau’s fascination with the Good Samaritan (the Musée Moreau has six oils and four watercolours of this particular subject in its collection) is perhaps unsurprising.

Edmond Taigny, the first owner of the present work, was an active member of the Union centrale des Arts décoratifs, and president of its museum commission in the 1880s. He bought Le Bon Samaritain, together with the watercolour Les Voixs, in January 1881 as his first purchases from Moreau. Towards the end of the same year Taigny acquired the oil painting Galatea (now in the Musée d’Orsay, Paris), thus rapidly laying the foundations for his collection of works by the artist. It was thanks to Taigny that works such as Galatea, Le jeune homme et la mort and Le Bon Samaritain could be included in the Exposition Universelle Centennale of 1900 after Moreau's death.