Christ and the Samaritan Woman

Jean-François de Troy's Christ and the Samaritan Woman, painted in 1742 and now in the Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon, depicts the encounter from John's Gospel in which Jesus asks a Samaritan woman for water at a well near Sychar, revealing himself as the Messiah in conversation that transcended ethnic and religious barriers. De Troy, working here as director of the French Academy in Rome, brings to the subject the Venetian coloristic warmth and looseness of handling he absorbed during his Italian sojourn, placing the figures in a warm landscape that recalls the Roman Campagna.

De Troy renders the encounter as an intimate dialogue, Christ and the Samaritan woman in close conversation across the rim of the well. The palette is warm and sun-filled, with pale blues and golds. Figures are broadly handled in de Troy's mature manner, the expressions clearly differentiated between divine authority and human curiosity.