Anthony van Dyck

(Antwerp, 1599 – London, 1641)

Christ and the Adulteress

ca. 1620-1622

oil on canvas

169 x 252 cm

Inv. no. 581

BBVA Collection Spain


The attribution of this exceptional work to Van Dyck was made by Matías Díaz Padrón in 1962 when he established that it is a replica of a painting by Van Dyck which was in El Escorial in the 17th century. After a thorough analysis of the work, Díaz Padrón confirmed the authorship in 1972 in an article in Archivo Español de Arte (XLV, 180).

Díaz Padrón dates its execution to around 1620-22. The composition and the palette, as well as the long, loose brushstroke, are characteristically Venetian, which should come as no surprise given that Van Dyck completed his training in Italy, where he spent six years (1621-27). This influence would explain the previous attribution of the work to Jacopo Tintoretto (1518-1594) in the inventory of the Royal Collections and to Titian (1489-1576) in the inventory of the collection of Infante Sebastian Gabriel de Borbón, from where it came.

It is worth pointing out that Van Dyck’s travel sketchbooks are full of copies of paintings by Titian, including a pencil sketch of a painting with an identical subject matter (Museum Plantin-Moretus/Stedelijk Prentenkabinet) in which the depiction of Christ is nearly a mirror image of the one painted by Van Dyck in this work. The position of Christ’s arm is also reminiscent of a drawing by Raphael (1483-1520), The Incredulity of Saint Thomas, from the Fitzwilliam Museum. However, the expression and profile of the adulteress are characteristic of Van Dyck.

While the female figure reminds us of Paolo Veronese (1528-1588) and the figure of Christ brings to mind Titian, the character sitting on the steps is taken directly from Raphael’s Transfiguration, most certainly from a print, for the image is reversed in relation to the original model by the Italian master.

The landscape in the background shows influences of Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640), in whose workshop Van Dyck was mentioned for the first time in 1618 as one of his most important assistants.

We ought to underscore that Van Dyck did not copy any of the masters, but borrowed those details he found of interest, making them his own without ever renouncing his northern background.

There is another version of this composition by Van Dyck, now kept at the Venerable Orden Tercera church and previously in the sacristy of the El Escorial monastery, until the 19th century. In it, the characters are depicted in tight groups, while in this one the landscape creates a space between the masses.