Circle of Pieter Aertsen

The same composition is depicted in the background of a composition by Pieter Aertsen (1508-1575) showing a Market still life with Christ and the woman taken in adultery, in the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm (inv. no. 2106; see M.J. Friedländer, Early Netherlandish Painting, vol. XIII, Leiden/Brussels 1975, p. 98, no. 305, reproduced plate 152). Another work by the artist representing the same subject as the present work, signed and dated 1559, is in the Städelschen Institut, Frankfurt-am-Main (inv. no. 1378).

This painting depicts the story decribed by John (8: 2-11) that while Christ was teaching in the Temple at Jerusalem the Pharisees brought to him a woman who had been caught in the act of committing adultery. Under Mosaic law the punishment for the offence was stoning, but the Roman authorities had deprived the Jews of the power to impose death penalty. What did Christ have to say, the Pharisees wanted to know, hoping to trap him into a reply that would offend either their own or Roman law. Christ bent down and wrote with one finger in the dust, as can be seen here: 'That one of you who is faultless shall throw the first stone'. The Pharisees went away mortified and when Christ was alone with the woman he forgave her.