In his work Droochsloot repeatedly represented a biblical story about the healing of the paralytic. This plot is also depicted in the Bethesda painting. In the Gospel paralyzed people were called those who were so sick that they could not move independently. 

The Gospel of John narrates about Jesus healing a patient near the pool of Bethesda. Water from the bathhouse was considered miraculous: at times the angel of the Lord went to the bathhouse and waved the water, thus whoever first entered it then recovered, no matter the disease. Paralytics was laying in the gallery by the bathhouse, he had been suffering from his illness for thirty-eight years and almost lost hope of healing, since there was no one to lower him into the bathhouse when the water was waved. Jesus said to him: Take your bed and go. 

And the patient immediately recovered, took his bed and went away. There is information about seventeen paintings created by the master on this plot. The painting from the collection of the Kaluga Museum of Fine Arts was previously part of the art collection of Prince Vladimir Nikolayevich Argutinsky-Dolgorukov – a famous collector, philanthropist, and art critic. 

He studied at the law faculty of St. Petersburg University and at Cambridge. He worked in the diplomatic service in France; in the early years of the Soviet era he worked in the Hermitage as a curator of the drawings and engravings department. Argutinsky-Dolgorukov was one of the organizers of Sergey Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes in Paris. 

Since 1907, he collaborated with the Museum of Old St. Petersburg affiliated with the Society of Architects and Artists; he also headed the commission for the study and description of St. Petersburg. In 1910, he joined the Society for the Protection and Preservation of monuments of art and antiquity. Since 1921, he lived in Paris. His collection included paintings by Russian and Western European masters (over 60), architectural graphics with views of St. Petersburg and its suburbs (about 2000), rare porcelain samples, autographs of major figures of literature and art. Vladimir Nikolayevich handed over a wide range of works from his collection to the Hermitage and the Russian Museum.

 Droochsloot’s painting Bethesda was among the works coming from his collection to the Hermitage. In the 1920-1930s, Russian museums underwent redistribution of art objects; therefore, many pieces of art changed their location. This process affected almost all museums: both provincial and metropolitan. In May 1934, the Museum Department of the People’s Commissariat of Education approved transfer of sixteen paintings from the Hermitage to the Kaluga Museum. It included Bethesda. Thus, the work from former collection of Argutinsky-Dolgorukov ended up in Kaluga.