Hand-painted in oil
About this Artwork
The well at Sychar
The episode is in the fourth chapter of John: Christ, resting at Jacob's well in Samaria, asks a Samaritan woman for a drink and speaks to her of living water. It is one of the longest conversations recorded in the gospels and the whole scene is two people and a well. Painting keeps it that way — a seated or standing Christ, a woman with a vessel, and the well between them as the only property.
Where it falls in the cycle
In the ministry, well after the baptism and long before the entry into Jerusalem. It belongs to the group of encounter scenes, alongside the healing at Bethesda and the woman taken in adultery, in which the narrative slows to a single exchange rather than a public miracle.
The record
The catalogue gives Rembrandt, 1659, and the Gemaldegalerie, Berlin. At 48 by 41 centimetres it is a small panel-scale work, intimate rather than public. The style is entered as Baroque and the artist as Dutch. The subject fields file it under landscape, tree, and religious. The measured palette reads as red. The record does not describe the composition, and this page does not invent one.
Sources
4 references- Rembrandt — Wikipedia
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (15 July 1606 – 4 October 1669), known mononymously as Rembrandt, was a Dutch Golden Age painter, printmaker, and draughtsman. He is generally considered one of the greatest visual artists in the history of We
- Rembrandt van Rijn — Getty ULAN
Dutch painter, printmaker, 1606-1669
- Christ and the Samaritan at the Well — Wikidata
description: painting by Follower of Lucas Cranach the Elder or Workshop Lucas Cranach the Elder (Private Collection)
- Christ and the Samaritan Woman, Rembrandt van Rijn, 1659, Hermitage, Saint Petersburg — Wikimedia Commons
High-resolution image of the work, hosted on Wikimedia Commons.
