Skip to main content
Collection of the Lowe Art Museum, University of Miami
Christ and the Adulteress
Collection of the Lowe Art Museum, University of Miami
© Lowe Art Museum, University of Miami. All rights reserved.

Christ and the Adulteress

Artist/Maker (Italy, 1490-1529)
Dateca. 1525
Mediumoil on canvas
DimensionsSight: 45 3/4 x 61 1/4 in. (116.2 x 155.6 cm)
Framed: 45 3/4 x 61 1/4 in. (116.2 x 155.6 cm)
ClassificationsVisual Works
Credit LineGift of The Samuel H. Kress Foundation
Terms
    Object number61.028.000
    DescriptionChrist and the Adulteress illustrates the biblical episode (John 7:53-8:11) in which Jesus is confronted by scribes and Pharisees who ask him to decide the fate of an adulteress. Although the penalty for adultery according to Mosaic law was death by stoning, Jesus admonishes the crowd: “He who is without sin …, let him first cast a stone at her.” Left alone with the woman once the shame-faced crowd disperses, Jesus tells her: “Neither do I condemn you, and from now on sin no more.” Conflating the beginning and end of the story, Marconi depicts a dense group of scribes and Pharisees in front of a temple, with Christ at the center blessing the adulteress. Christ and the adulteress was an extremely popular subject in sixteenth-century Venetian art as an inspirational exemplum of Christ’s limitless capacity for mercy. More than any other Venetian artist, Rocco Marconi was known for his many paintings of this story.
    On View
    Not on view
    Collections
    Collection of the Lowe Art Museum, University of Miami
    Andrea della Robbia
    late 15th to early 16th century
    Collection of the Lowe Art Museum, University of Miami
    Andrea della Robbia
    late 15th to early 16th century
    Collection of the Lowe Art Museum, University of Miami
    Maya (archaeological culture)
    ca. 650-850
    Collection of the Lowe Art Museum, University of Miami
    Pietro Dandini
    ca. 1670-1680
    Collection of the Lowe Art Museum, University of Miami
    Rycroft Painter and Shop
    ca. 525-510 BCE
    Collection of the Lowe Art Museum, University of Miami
    Maya (archaeological culture)
    ca. 600-900
    Collection of the Lowe Art Museum, University of Miami
    Hausa people
    19th to 20th century
    Collection of the Lowe Art Museum, University of Miami
    Hausa people
    19th to 20th century
    Collection of the Lowe Art Museum, University of Miami
    Benedetto Diana
    ca. 1500
    Collection of the Lowe Art Museum, University of Miami
    Battista Dossi
    ca. 1520-1530