Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery

The present panel follows a painting en grisaille by Pieter Bruegel I, dated M.D.LXV (1565; London, Courtauld Gallery; fig. 1), after which an engraving of 1579 exists in the same sense, by Pieter Perret (1555-1639; fig. 2). The Courtauld painting is one of only three grisailles by Pieter I to survive, the other two being The Death of the Virgin (Upton House, National Trust) and Three Soldiers (New York, Frick Collection).

Painted only in finely modulated shades of grey, these exquisite grisailles were treasured by Bruegel and his circle, and the Courtauld’s Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery was one of the very few paintings the artist kept for himself. Upon his death in 1625, his son Jan Brueghel I bequeathed it to his patron Cardinal Federigo Borromeo, Archbishop of Milan, but the cardinal deemed the gift too generous and commissioned a copy before sending the work back to the family in Antwerp. It was then most probably sold by Jan Brueghel II shortly afterwards in 1626-27.

The composition proved to be extremely popular and was widely disseminated in Perret’s engraving, which was published by Pieter de Jode in Antwerp and Claes Jansz. Visscher in Amsterdam. At least eighteen painted copies of the Courtauld painting survive, with at least eleven painted in grisaille and seven in colour (see A. Burnstock, K. Serres and A. Tate Harte, in Bruegel in Black and White: Three Grisailles Reunited, exhibition catalogue, London, p. 37).

Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery illustrates an event from the Gospel of John (8:1–11). As Christ was teaching outside the Temple, a group of Pharisees and Scribes brought before him a woman accused of adultery - a crime punishable by stoning under law. Hoping to trap Jesus into contradicting the law, they asked for his judgment. In response, Jesus silently bent down and wrote on the ground before saying, “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her”. His powerful words caused the crowd to disperse, sparing the woman from punishment. The composition condenses the episode into a singular, powerful image: the Pharisee at right seeks his reaction with a gesture; Christ traces his words into the dust; and the figures in the background turn away into the shadows.