Alessandro Moretto is recognised as one of the leading painters of religious reality in sixteenth-century Lombardy—to appropriate a phrase from the title of Roberto Longhi’s legendary and innovative exhibition, Painters of reality in Lombardy, held in 1953 at the Brera, Milan.[1] In that exhibition Longhi defined the tradition of North Italian Verism that began in Brescia with Gerolamo Romanino (1484/1487–1560?) and continued to Geacomo Ceruti (1698–1767). Together with Lorenzo Lotto and Girolamo Savoldo,[2] Moretto was one of the most sought-after artists in Lombardy, but less appreciated in the city of Venice, the domain of Titian.[3]

Moretto created a form of sixteenth-century classicism for his sacred paintings, imbued with the spirit of the Counter Reformation. A key part of the Counter Reformation, the Council of Trent which met between 1545 and 1563, determined that religious imagery should be transformed into a comprehensible and accessible experience for Catholics. Moretto was personally involved in the reforming religious movements around that time and was committed to a new definition of religious experience that was concerned with the poetry of everyday life. His biblical interpretations appealed to upper middle-class patrons in Lombardy:an example is his Feast in the house of Simon Pharisee c.1550,[4] interpreted as a simple lunch at an inn on the banks of the Lago di Garda in Lombardy.

 The small Bergamo painting was intended for private devotion and it seems that the image was popular with the artist and his patrons, as a number of versions exist. The New Testament subject is taken from a long passage in the Gospel of Saint John (4:1–30). Jesus is resting at a well near the city of Sychar in Samaria when a woman comes by to draw water. To his request for a drink she responds:

How is it that thou, a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? For the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans.

Christ and the woman are portrayed deep in conversation. Is it possible to determine the exact point in their lengthy discourse that Moretto chose to illustrate? The glittering halo might indicate that it is when Christ convinces the woman that, indeed, he is the Messiah.

The setting of a well located outside a small castle town is appropriated from an engraving by Albrecht Dürer,[5] however the painting is Venetian in style. The filtered grey light is reminiscent of Titian, from whom Moretto had learned according to his first biographers, Giorgio Vasari and Carlo Ridolfi. Vasari describes Moretto as very delicate in his colouring, ‘delicatissimo ne’colori’.

Christ and the woman of Samaria is often grouped with other small paintings of high quality from Moretto’s early period which are based on a humane interpretation of Christ: Christ in the wilderness c.1520–1523,[6] and Christ blessing Saint John the Baptist c.1520–1523.[7]

Jaynie Anderson

[1] Roberto Longhi, I pittori della realtà in Lombardia, Milan: Amilcare Pizzi, 1953, pp. iv–v, 17–18.

[2] Lorenzo Lotto (c. 1480–1556/1557); Girolamo Savoldo (c. 1480–c. 1548).

[3] Titian (1488/1490–1576).

[4] Santa Maria in Calchera, Brescia.

[5] Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528).

[6] Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

[7] National Gallery, London.