There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water: Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink. Then saith the woman of Samaria unto him, How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans. Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water. John 4: 7; 9-10

The subject of our painting appears only in the Gospel of John (4: 4-42). Christ encounters a Samaritan woman on his way from Judea to Galilee, when he stops by Jacob’s well to rest. John relates how, after she gives him water from the well, he reveals himself to be the Messiah; she becomes a believer and goes into the city to tell others that she has met the Messiah.

The story illustrates the concept of living water, which symbolises the spiritual sustenance that belief in Christ offers, in contrast to the physical sustenance that the well’s water is offering.

Our painting is attributed to the early 16th Century Dutch painter Jan van Scorel. Van Scorel was part of the Romanist School of painters, who brought Italian techniques to the art of the Low Countries. He lived in Rome for a time, where he was influenced by the work of Michelangelo and Raphael. The figures in this painting are, indeed, set against a spectacular Italianate landscape of rolling hills capped by stone castles both near and far, separated by a river valley. The rendering and shading of the castles is extraordinary, as are the figures of Christ and the Samaritan Woman.

The painting was recognised as an important painting in the early part of the 20th Century, and belonged to the Austrian Consul in Antwerp at the time of his death in 1933.

Provenance: May 29 to June 2, 1933 – Sale of the Collection of the late Armand Hessel, Austrian Consul in Antwerp. Important paintings, sculptures from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. May – 2 June 1933, lot 108, bought by De Ridder. Auctioned as Cornelis Cornelisz. Buys II by Sotheby’s London as “Property of a Gentleman,”  without record of a sale. Later bought by owners of Towie Barclay Castle, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, and owned by them until 2024.