Christ and the Woman taken in Adultery

Dietrich's Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery from 1755 places this charged Gospel subject — Christ confounding the Pharisees who seek to stone the adulteress, with his famous challenge 'let he who is without sin cast the first stone' — in a pictorial tradition extending from Rembrandt's famous treatment to numerous Italian and French predecessors. Dietrich's approach to religious subjects often combined reverence for Old Master models with a certain eclectic sophistication. The subject's drama — the shifting power between accusers, accused, and the silent Christ — provided strong compositional potential.

The composition organizes the tense confrontation between Christ, the accused woman, and the departing accusers. Dietrich's Rembrandtesque interest in dramatic chiaroscuro lighting — figures emerging from shadow into the light of divine judgment — may be evident in this subject's traditional pictorial treatment.