Christ and the Samaritan Woman

Christ and the Samaritan Woman, dated c.1650 and in Museum de Fundatie in the Netherlands, draws on John 4's account of Christ's conversation with the woman at Jacob's Well in Samaria — a dialogue that crosses racial, religious, and gender boundaries to offer salvation. The subject had been treated by Annibale Carracci, Guercino, and Rubens in the early Baroque period, and it offered painters the opportunity for an intimate dialogue scene between contrasting figures: the weary traveller and the woman of questionable reputation who becomes, through their conversation, the first evangelist. Strozzi's Venetian period treatment brings warmth and humanity to both figures — avoiding the moral condescension sometimes visible in treatments that emphasise the woman's sinfulness over Christ's compassion.

Canvas with the paired-figure format of intimate dialogue composition. The well provides a compositional anchor and iconographic marker of the specific Gospel location. Light falls on both faces equally, visually enacting the democratic spiritual exchange of the narrative. Strozzi's broad brushwork gives both figures physical presence.