He stands tall in a fringed shawl and looks upward.
Bible in art · Luke
The Pharisee and the Tax Collector
Gustave Doré · 1866 (designs for La Sainte Bible, Tours); this printing 1873–1874
National Library of Poland, Warsaw
In this plate from the Bible of 1866 Doré puts the storyteller into his own story: through the open door of the temple Jesus and His disciples look in, pale in the daylight.
Inside, in the gloom between massive pillars, the two men of the parable pray. The Pharisee stands upright in a fringed shawl and a necklace, gazing upward, a staff in his hand. The tax collector has thrown himself down on the floor, arms spread, his staff fallen beside him. The light from the door falls on both.
From the text
- “Two men went up to the temple to pray.” (Luke 18:10)
- “The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed” (Luke 18:11)
- “the tax collector stood at a distance, unwilling even to lift up his eyes to heaven” (Luke 18:13)
The artist’s own
- Jesus and the disciples watching from the doorway — in the text He tells the story, He is not in it
- The tax collector bowed to the ground, while the text says he stood and beat his breast
- The Pharisee’s rich dress, jewels and tasseled shawl
Details
The Pharisee
The tax collector
He bows to the floor with his arms spread wide.
In the doorway
Jesus, with a halo, and His disciples look in from the daylight.
The fallen staff
The tax collector’s staff lies on the stone floor.
Gustave Doré, French, 1832–1883. National Library of Poland (Biblioteka Narodowa), Warsaw — «Pismo Święte Starego i Nowego Testamentu», vol. 2, Warsaw: M. Glücksberg, 1874 (acc. 75.267 A) · Wood engraving after Gustave Doré’s design · National Library of Poland (Polona): the record of the volume gives the licence «Domena Publiczna» (Public Domain), «copyrightProtected»: false; the scan was uploaded to Wikimedia Commons by the library itself («Polona Upload», GLAM-Wiki partnership: “This file was uploaded to Wikimedia Commons as part of a GLAM-Wiki partnership between the National Library of Poland and Wikimedia Polska”), linking its Polona record.