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Lot Essay
Among the most accomplished Caravaggesque painters active in Rome during the second quarter of the seventeenth century, Bartolomeo Mendozzi was known until recently by the sobriquet ‘Maestro dell’Incredulità di San Tommaso’ (‘Master of the Incredulity of Saint Thomas’). First published by Massimo Pulini, this Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery dates to the height of Mendozzi’s career in Rome, the early 1630s, and exemplifies the dramatic chiaroscuro, saturated palette, and psychological intensity that distinguish the artist's finest compositions (M. Pulini, loc. cit.).
The subject is drawn from the Gospel of John (8:1-11), in which the Scribes and Pharisees bring before Christ a woman accused of adultery, demanding judgment according to Mosaic Law. Christ's response—‘He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her’—disperses the accusers and spares her life. Rather than depicting the large crowd typically seen in treatments of this subject, Mendozzi reduces the narrative to three half-length protagonists pressed close to the picture plane: a helmeted soldier at center, the bound adulteress at right, and Christ at left. Their features emerge from deep shadow under a strong raking light. The woman's downcast gaze and bound wrists capture a suspended moment of reprieve, while Christ's gesture conveys both judgment and mercy.
As Pulini observes, Mendozzi reprises the figure of the soldier from his Denial of Saint Peter (Macerata, Pinacoteca Buonaccorsi; ibid.). A second treatment of the present subject, first published by Gianni Papi, repeats this soldier almost exactly, although the faces of Christ and the adulteress differ markedly (fig. 1; location unknown; see G. Papi, ‘Il Maestro dell'Incredulità di San Tommaso’, Arte Cristiana, DCCLXXIX, 1997). Christ’s vibrant red mantle creates a dramatic focal point within a palette otherwise defined by warm ochres and deep shadow; this mantle is comparable to the saturated reds in the artist's Judith Beheading Holofernes (Dorotheum, Vienna, 23 May 2023, lot 54).
In 1997, Papi assembled a number of paintings centered around the Incredulity of Saint Thomas in the Palazzo Valentini, Rome, from which the then-anonymous master derived his placeholder name. Describing the artist as ‘a sort of alter ego of Valentin’, Papi highlighted the painter's debt to Jusepe de Ribera, Bartolomeo Manfredi, and the French Caravaggist Nicolas Tournier and the Flemish Nicolas Régnier. (F. Curti, ‘Bartolomeo Mendozzi alias Maestro dell’Incredulità di San Tommaso’, in A. Cosma and Y. Primarosa (eds.), Barocco in chiaroscuro, Rome, 2020, p. 40; G. Papi, Spogliando modelli e alzando lumi: Scritti su Caravaggio e l’ambiente caravaggesco, Naples, 2014, p. 185).
The identification of this anonymous master was established by Giuseppe Porzio’s attribution of two lateral canvases in Rieti Cathedral: the Martyrdom of Saint Stephen and the Martyrdom of Saint Lawrence. An eighteenth-century inventory ascribed these paintings to ‘Mendozzi’, a reference Francesca Curti subsequently connected to the painter Bartolomeo Mendozzi (born circa 1600 in Leonessa), who was active in Rome and central Italy until the mid-1640s (F. Curti, op. cit., p. 42; see G. Porzio, A Rediscovered Concert, the Master of the Incredulity of Saint Thomas and Jean Ducamps, Florence, 2015). The presence of Mendozzi’s paintings in the celebrated Giustiniani collection, alongside a 1635 document describing him as a pupil of Bartolomeo Manfredi, attests to the high esteem the artist enjoyed during his lifetime (ibid., p. 44).
We are grateful to Massimo Pulini (written communication, 5 November 2025) and Tommaso Borgogelli (written communication, 3 November 2025) for endorsing the attribution to Bartolomeo Mendozzi on the basis of high-resolution digital photographs.
The subject is drawn from the Gospel of John (8:1-11), in which the Scribes and Pharisees bring before Christ a woman accused of adultery, demanding judgment according to Mosaic Law. Christ's response—‘He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her’—disperses the accusers and spares her life. Rather than depicting the large crowd typically seen in treatments of this subject, Mendozzi reduces the narrative to three half-length protagonists pressed close to the picture plane: a helmeted soldier at center, the bound adulteress at right, and Christ at left. Their features emerge from deep shadow under a strong raking light. The woman's downcast gaze and bound wrists capture a suspended moment of reprieve, while Christ's gesture conveys both judgment and mercy.
As Pulini observes, Mendozzi reprises the figure of the soldier from his Denial of Saint Peter (Macerata, Pinacoteca Buonaccorsi; ibid.). A second treatment of the present subject, first published by Gianni Papi, repeats this soldier almost exactly, although the faces of Christ and the adulteress differ markedly (fig. 1; location unknown; see G. Papi, ‘Il Maestro dell'Incredulità di San Tommaso’, Arte Cristiana, DCCLXXIX, 1997). Christ’s vibrant red mantle creates a dramatic focal point within a palette otherwise defined by warm ochres and deep shadow; this mantle is comparable to the saturated reds in the artist's Judith Beheading Holofernes (Dorotheum, Vienna, 23 May 2023, lot 54).
In 1997, Papi assembled a number of paintings centered around the Incredulity of Saint Thomas in the Palazzo Valentini, Rome, from which the then-anonymous master derived his placeholder name. Describing the artist as ‘a sort of alter ego of Valentin’, Papi highlighted the painter's debt to Jusepe de Ribera, Bartolomeo Manfredi, and the French Caravaggist Nicolas Tournier and the Flemish Nicolas Régnier. (F. Curti, ‘Bartolomeo Mendozzi alias Maestro dell’Incredulità di San Tommaso’, in A. Cosma and Y. Primarosa (eds.), Barocco in chiaroscuro, Rome, 2020, p. 40; G. Papi, Spogliando modelli e alzando lumi: Scritti su Caravaggio e l’ambiente caravaggesco, Naples, 2014, p. 185).
The identification of this anonymous master was established by Giuseppe Porzio’s attribution of two lateral canvases in Rieti Cathedral: the Martyrdom of Saint Stephen and the Martyrdom of Saint Lawrence. An eighteenth-century inventory ascribed these paintings to ‘Mendozzi’, a reference Francesca Curti subsequently connected to the painter Bartolomeo Mendozzi (born circa 1600 in Leonessa), who was active in Rome and central Italy until the mid-1640s (F. Curti, op. cit., p. 42; see G. Porzio, A Rediscovered Concert, the Master of the Incredulity of Saint Thomas and Jean Ducamps, Florence, 2015). The presence of Mendozzi’s paintings in the celebrated Giustiniani collection, alongside a 1635 document describing him as a pupil of Bartolomeo Manfredi, attests to the high esteem the artist enjoyed during his lifetime (ibid., p. 44).
We are grateful to Massimo Pulini (written communication, 5 November 2025) and Tommaso Borgogelli (written communication, 3 November 2025) for endorsing the attribution to Bartolomeo Mendozzi on the basis of high-resolution digital photographs.