Christ and the Adulteress

The scribes bring Christ a woman caught in adultery and remind him that the law of Moses orders her to be stoned. In the Gospel of John he hesitates, writing on the ground, and then answers that whoever is without sin should throw the first stone. The accusers slip away one by one, and he sends her off with the words go, and sin no more. Veronese and his workshop painted the scene around 1585 on a canvas almost three metres wide. The museum suggests it was meant as the New Testament counterpart to his Susanna and the Elders, also in this museum, in which a faithful wife is falsely accused by two old men. In both stories a woman stands before men who claim the law is on their side.