The Woman Taken in Adultery

Rembrandt painted The Woman Taken in Adultery in 1644, depicting the dramatic Gospel scene where Christ challenges the Scribes and Pharisees who have dragged a woman caught in adultery before him — 'Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.' The painting's architectural setting is one of the most elaborate in Rembrandt's oeuvre: a vast temple interior receding into shadowy gold darkness, the enormous columns and stairways of an imagined Solomon's Temple creating a space of overwhelming scale in which the human drama at center stage is both dwarfed and intensified. The use of architectural grandeur to frame an intimate moral drama recalls the theatrical settings of Baroque opera, and Rembrandt's staging demonstrates his understanding of the spatial manipulation of attention. The National Gallery's holding of the canvas, alongside the Belshazzar's Feast and several other major Rembrandts, makes London one of the finest places in the world to study the full range of his biblical subjects.

The vast, shadowy temple interior is rendered with warm golden tones, with Christ's illuminated figure at the center creating a focal point that draws the eye through the complex spatial composition.