Dives and Lazarus

Giordano's Dives and Lazarus from around 1670 at Harvard Art Museums depicts the parable from Luke 16 in which the rich man (Dives) feasts while the beggar Lazarus lies at his gate, covered in sores. After death, Lazarus is carried to Abraham's bosom while Dives is tormented in Hell — the reversal of their earthly fortunes constituting one of Christ's most pointed social teachings. The subject carried obvious Counter-Reformation social weight: wealth without charity condemned the soul, and the comfortable classes who commissioned devotional paintings were directly addressed by a narrative where the rich man's indifference to suffering was his damnation. Giordano typically depicted the earthly feast scene rather than the afterlife judgment, filling the canvas with the contrast between the rich man's banquet and the visible suffering at his threshold. The Harvard Art Museums hold this alongside other significant Italian Baroque works that entered American university collections through gift and purchase across the twentieth century.

The contrast between the feast of Dives and the suffering of Lazarus creates a dramatic compositional divide. Giordano uses lighting and figure positioning to emphasize the moral opposition between wealth and poverty.