Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery

The painting is a version of the similarly entitled work by Lucas Cranach the Elder (1532, Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest), which was created in a close manner by Lucas Cranach the Younger, the artist's son and his most gifted pupil. The Gospel relates an episode with a woman who was taken in adultery and brought to Christ by the Pharisees. Under Mosaic law the punishment for the offence was stoning and the Pharisees wanted to know what they were to do with the woman. Christ said them: "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her". At this the woman's accusers went away mortified. Depicted in the centre of the composition is Christ wearing a red cloak. Next to him is the woman sinner with downcast eyes. She is a typical Cranach beauty dressed in the 16th-century fashion. They are surrounded by a crowd of people - the Pharisees, apostles and warriors - who represent a variety of human characters. The reverse of the canvas bears an inscription in Latin which says that in the 18th century the painting was mistakenly taken by the work of Albrecht Dürer. The picture painted on a panel was split and damaged. By order of Catherine II the artist Georg Leopold Pfandzelt transferred it from panel to a copperplate in 1770.