"Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery"

Pieter Bruegel the Elder - Oil
a small panel painting in grisaille (near monochrome). It is signed and dated 1565. Jesus and the woman taken in adultery is a biblical episode from John 7:53-8:11 where Jesus encounters an adulteress brought before Pharisees and scribes, which has been depicted by many artists. Such a crime was punishable by death by stoning, however, in the scene, Jesus stoops to write (in Dutch) "he that is without sin among you, let him first cast the stone at her" on the ground before her feet. A number of the unthrown stones lay on the floor to the left of the woman. Bruegel depicts the woman as one of the few graceful figures in the scene. She is rendered as an idealised form, atypical of Brugel's usual earthy and homely female figures
though the basic layout of the composition is Netherlandish, "the austere composition and monumental figures are perhaps the most Italianate in all Bruegel's paintings".