Scripture · Luke 22:41-42
Luke 16:20-21
The Wicked Rich Man (Dives and Lazarus)
And a beggar named Lazarus lay at his gate, covered with sores and longing to be fed with the crumbs that fell from the rich man’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.
Lazarus sits at the foot of a high wall with a dog beside his outstretched leg. The banquet appears only through an opening above him.
About the artwork
The pale wall occupies much of the narrow picture, making the distance between levels more imposing than the distance between people. A dog lowers its muzzle toward Lazarus’s wrapped leg; the richly framed opening above offers only a partial view of the interior. Another figure stands on the steps, but no human act of help connects the banquet to the beggar. The animal’s nearness becomes conspicuous against that separation.
The traditional English title uses Dives, the Latin word for “rich,” as though it were a name; Luke leaves the rich man unnamed. Lazarus, whose body occupies the less privileged space, is the person the text names. He is the beggar in this parable, distinct from the Lazarus raised from the dead in John 11. Moreau’s arrangement gives him the foreground even while the architecture keeps him outside.
Featured in: Gustave Moreau’s Bible Paintings: The Homebody Who Painted Salome
What does Luke 16:20-21 mean?
Luke 16:20–21 places Lazarus at the rich man’s gate, hungry and covered in sores while the household lives in splendor. The contrast depends on proximity: the need is not on another continent or hidden in an unknown city. It lies at the boundary of the wealthy man’s own home.
The rest of the parable reverses the two men’s conditions after death and ends with the warning that Moses and the Prophets already call for a response. The foreground and distant opening make the earlier failure of attention the painting’s subject. The later reversal gives that apparently ordinary neglect its seriousness.
Luke 16:20–21 explains the gap between Lazarus outside and abundance within; the rest of the parable shows why that separation matters.
Sources
Reproduction record — Le Mauvais Riche, Cat. 125. The exact reproduction is identified through its Commons catalogue label. Medium, date and physical dimensions have not been confirmed from a primary object record; no medium is asserted here.
Gustave Moreau’s Bible Paintings: The Homebody Who Painted Salome. Artwork reading adapted from this guide.
Luke 16 — Berean Standard Bible. Context for Luke 16:20-21.
Also from Luke:The Angel Appearing to ZachariasAnnunciation
Continue looking:The Prodigal SonLazarus at the Rich Man’s GateThe Raising of Lazarus (after Rembrandt)