Description: Pen and brown ink, brown wash, red chalk and white body colour, 176 x 252 mm. Lined.

Kruse discovered that this scene corresponds to the background scene in Rembrandt’s painting The Woman Taken in Adultery of 1644 in the National Gallery, London. The drawing depicts in a sketchy manner every figure of that composition. Both Kruse and Sumowski base their attribution on the silhouetted figure on the right, which, as they observe, occurs repeatedly in Koninck’s oeuvre.

The foreground of the painting shows Christ facing the kneeling adulteress, surrounded by a group of men. The scene is lit from the left. The scene in the background is situated on a higher level, with much smaller figures. There the light is subdued, but in the drawing it is stronger and comes from a hidden source. The man on the throne sits opposite a small group of people, kneeling like supplicants, to the left of the two pillars. The light brings out the figure of a man with long hair, framed by the pillars. He seems to be a repetition of Christ as he is depicted in the foreground of the painting. [Magnusson, Dutch Drawings no. 229]

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Salomon Koninck | Tempelscen: Troende inför översteprästen | Nationalmuseum