Christus und die Ehebrecherin

By 1644 Rembrandt was working large, running a busy Amsterdam workshop and painting on the scale of the group portraits that made his name. This is the opposite of all that. It is a small panel, barely a couple of feet high, and he treats it like a piece of jewellery. Most of it is shadow, a vast dim temple interior rising into darkness. Then a shaft of light picks out one kneeling woman in pale silk, brought before Christ by the men who want him to condemn her. The gold of the temple furniture behind them is laid on so thickly it seems to glow on its own. Rembrandt catches the exact pause before Christ answers, when nobody in the crowd yet knows what he will say. It was one of the first paintings the National Gallery bought when it opened, in 1824.