Studio of Domenico Fetti

The Blind Leading the Blind

Mantua, 1621-1622

Oil on wood

60.7 x 44.2 cm

This painting represents a parable (moral story) from the Bible: if a blind person follows another blind person, ‘they will fall in a ditch’. A group of figures journey across the painting from left to right, following a man who is much lower than the others. He is ‘in a ditch’, yelling to his friends. The man next to him stands on the precipice, as if he is about to tumble in himself. The figures are contrasted with the agility of the horse rider in the background, who journeys nimbly along a cliff edge.

Each of the men in the foreground has a form of medical blindness. The parable in the Bible, told by Jesus, is a warning about spiritual blindness. The painting is a problematic interpretation of the biblical story. It equates medical blindness to ignorance and even inebriation (note the tankard in the man’s hand). The vulnerability of the youngest member of the group, on the far left, is particularly concerning.

Paintings of Jesus’s parables are rare. Much more common are paintings of Jesus’s life, his miracles, death, and resurrection. This painting was one of series of paintings made for the Grotto Isabellina (named after the late Marchioness of Mantua, Isabella d’Este, 1474-1539) in the Ducal Palace of Mantua. The series provided moral instruction for the grotto’s elite audience. This painting was probably created by a member of Fetti’s studio, which included his father and sister, Lucrina Fetti (1590-1673), who was a successful painter in her own right.

Purchased 1949 (No.49.13)

Further reading:

Askew, Pamela, ‘The Parable Paintings of Domenico Fetti’, The Art Bulletin, 43/1, 1961, pp. 21–45.

Furlotti, Barbara and Guido Rebecchini, The Art of Mantua: Power and Patronage in the Renaissance, London, 2008, p. 244.

Safarik, Eduard, Fetti L’opera, Milan, 1990, pp. 330-35.