Returned to lender The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
Christ and the Adulteress
Valentin de Boulogne French
Not on view
Confronted with an adulterous woman who the law would condemn to punishment by stoning, Jesus looks up while writing in the dirt and says, "He that is without sin . . . let him first cast a stone." The scene is usually shown as a dispute between Jesus and the Pharisees. Here, the absorbed attention of the onlookers is on Christ and the enigmatic words he is writing—which we, like the Pharisees, cannot see. Christ’s gaze alone is directed at the accused woman. Valentin’s originality and deep sense of humanity are fully in evidence.
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