Christ and the Woman taken in Adultery, pen and brown ink with brown wash, on laid paper, 20,8 x 30,2 cm, mounted, framed

Provenance:
Anonymous collectors mark (not with Lugt); Private Collection, Belgium.

Literature:
D. Jacquot, et al., De Giotto à Goya. Peintures italiennes et espagnoles du musée des Beaux-Arts de Strasbourg, 2017, p. 145, p. 156, cat. no. 72, as Anonymous Venetian, 2nd half of the 16th century, entry by P. Goldenberg; Domenico Theotocopuli, El Greco, exhibition organised by the Gazette des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1937, no. 10; D. Freedberg, The Prints of Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Tokyo, 1989, p.53 ff; X. Bray in: El Greco, exh. cat. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the National Gallery, London, 2003, pp. 118-9, no. 19; N. Turner, ‘A Proposal for El Greco as a Draftsman,’ Master Drawings, vol. 45, no. 3 (autumn 2007), pp. 291-324, and R. Scorza, ‘El Greco: “Calligrafia,” “Disegno,” and Context,’ Master Drawings, vol. 51, no. 4 (winter 2014), pp. 429-42; Fernando Marías, El Greco: Life and Work – A New History, London 2013, pp. 21, 56, 69, 216, 104-5, 109; J. Marciari, Drawing in Tintoretto’s Venice, exh. cat. Morgan Library and Museum, New York 2018, “The Drawings of the Young El Greco in Italy?”, S. 167-183.

The present drawing with Christ and the Woman taken in Adultery is related to a small painting of the same subject in the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Strasbourg (Fig. I), which is paired with a Marriage at Cana, by the same hand (see Jacquot 2017, p. 145, cat. No. 72). The two paintings were acquired in Venice in 1891 by Wilhelm von Bode (1845-1929), then the newly-appointed director of the Strasbourg museum, from the dealer Carl Zuber, as by Jacopo Tintoretto (1518-1594).

Between the two World Wars, the Strasbourg pendants were attributed to El Greco. According to the museum’s records, Dr Hugo Kehrer (1876-1967), a German specialist of Spanish painting, made the suggestion in 1934, and he was subsequently followed in this opinion by another German Hispanist, Dr August Mayer (1885-1944) (see Jacquot 2017, p. 156). In 1937, the two canvases were included as El Greco in an exhibition on the painter’s work organised in Paris by the Gazette des Beaux-Arts, where, according to some reports, they elicited great interest (Domenico Theotocopuli, El Greco, exhibition organised by the Gazette des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1937, no. 10). In 1947, however, Dr. Martin Soria, another specialist of Iberian art, in a written statement sent to the museum, rejected the El Greco attribution. Since then they have been placed as Anonymous Venetian, second half of the 16th century.

The composition of the painting, particularly the figures of Christ and the Adulteress, are borrowed with variations from the grisaille painting by Pieter Brueghel the Elder (1525-1569) in the Courtauld Institute Galleries, London, which was engraved in the same direction as the picture by the Netherlandish printmaker Pieter Perret (1555-1639), whose print was published in Antwerp in 1579 (Fig. II). Perret’s engraving rather than Brueghel’s picture, which continued to remain in Antwerp for some years, was very likely the draughtsman’s source, providing a terminus post quem for the present drawing that must have been executed after 1579. Jan Bruegel the Elder (1568-1625) had inherited the painting at his father’s death in 1569 and moved from Brussels to Antwerp before 1583, where he continued his training under Pieter Goetkint (d. 1583). Perret was born and trained in Antwerp, working later in Venice and Rome. Most of his later career was spent in Spain, mostly in Madrid.

The differences in detail between the small canvas of Christ and the Woman taken in Adultery in Strasbourg and the present drawing clearly demonstrate that it can only be a preparatory compositional study for the painting, as opposed to a copy of it. Despite their current attribution as “Anonymous Venetian School”, both Nicholas Turner and Rick Scorza have pointed out that an attribution of the two paintings in Strasbourg and the drawing to El Greco should be considered.

According to Nicholas Turner, El Greco’s authorship of the two Strasbourg canvases deserves reconsideration on at least two grounds. The first is the proximity in style of the newly-discovered drawing to one of some five drawings generally accepted in the recent literature as securely by El Greco. This is the much-damaged study for St John the Baptist, formerly in the Krugier collection, Geneva, for the compartment in the lower left of his great altarpiece painted in 1577 for Santo Domingo el Antiguo, Toledo (see Bray 2003, pp. 118-9, no. 19). As has been suggested, the Krugier drawing is very likely one of two remnants from a larger drawn modello for the whole project. The parallels in style between the ex-Krugier St John the Baptist and the Dorotheum drawing include the saint’s abundant, bouncy forelock and the prominent quiffs of some of the elders to the left of Christ and the Woman taken in Adultery. In both sheets the penwork is sparse, broken and sometimes zig-zagging, a treatment that seems to compress the volumes. This distinctive faceting and angularity of form is a notable trait of the paintings from El Greco’s Spanish period.

Secondly, the Dorotheum drawing is compatible in style with a group of some 50 pen-and-wash studies recently attributed to El Greco and datable from his Italian period, a few of which are inscribed in the artist’s handwriting (see Turner 2007, pp. 291-324 and Scorza, 2014, pp. 429-42). Many of them were previously given to 16th-century Venetian painters such as Tintoretto, and Palma il Giovane. These are more robust in handling and stronger in chiaroscuro, but like the present sheet echo figures from Tintoretto’s painted work.

As Rick Scorza has pointed out, both the canvases and the present drawing also display facial types reminiscent of El Greco. In the Marriage at Cana, Christ’s profile head can be compared with that of the Apostle in orange robes in the Last Supper (Bologna, Pinacoteca) and the three-quarter profile of the bride with that of the Virgin in the Adoration of the Shepherds (Modena, Galleria Estense) (see Marías 2013, p.216). As for Christ and the Woman taken in Adultery, the head of the adulteress can be compared with the more summary head of the Virgin in the Flight into Egypt (London, Private Collection). The ‘twin’ of the bearded male head to the left of the adulteress recurs in the Purification of the Temple (Minneapolis, Institute of Arts) and in Christ healing the Blind (Dresden, Gemäldegalerie) (see Marías 2013, pp. 104-5, 109).

Despite the above arguments and the stylistic similarities with a group of drawings considered by El Greco, his work as a draughtsman still remains to be further investigated. Based on the current attribution of Christ and the Woman taken in Adultery in Strasbourg now catalogued as anonymous Venetian school and the assumption that the present drawing has been made as a preparatory study for the painting, the drawing can now only be offered as “Venetian School, 2nd half of the 16th century”. If Brueghel’s composition of Christ and the Woman taken in Adultery is the source for the two principal figures in both the Dorotheum drawing and the Strasbourg painting, then drawing and painting may be dated 1579, or later.

We are extremely grateful to Dr. Nicholas Turner and Dr. Rick Scorza for their scientific support and the alternative attribution to El Greco.