SAMARITANA AL POZZO. — The well-known episode from the Gospel of John (4:3–43), which recounts the encounter between Jesus, fatigatus ex itinere, and the S., who was drawing water from Jacob’s well, could not go unnoticed by Christian artists because of its messianic significance.
Although not one of the more widespread subjects, the known representations provide a fixed iconographic type with few variations, except for a single scene (Wilpert, Sarcofagi, pl. 233, 2), in which a third figure, probably Peter, is added to the two traditional personages, to express the Apostles’ astonishment at the unusual encounter, as in the cited Johannine passage. Cemetery painting offers few examples, all dating from between the end of the 2nd century and the end of the 3rd. The Saviour, in tunic and pallium—with the sole exception of the crypt of the coronation in the Pretestato catacomb (Wilpert, Pitture, pl. 19), where he wears a scarlet cloak—stands or is seated, holding the scroll of the Law or extending his hand to receive from the woman the bowl containing water, or beside the woman drawing water from the well. The scene of the S.
was adopted to signify the Revelation of the Messiah, but Wilpert (Pitture, pp. 390–93), in the depiction from Pretestato and that of Cubiculum III in Domitilla, perceives an allusion to the rite of the refrigerium. With another meaning, perhaps, and without the figure of Jesus Christ, the S. was painted in the Christian building at Dura Europos (around the middle of the 3rd century); in this matter Hopkins is to be preferred to Baur, who sees oriental influences there (cf. Ph. Cl. Hopkins, The Christian chapel at Dura-Europos, in Atti del III Congresso internaz. di archeol. crist., Rome 1934, p. 492, fig. 2; P. V. Baur, Les peintures de la chapelle chrétienne de Dura, in Gazette des beaux arts, 75 [1933], pp. 76–78).
More numerous are the approximately 15 examples provided by sarcophagi, almost all from the 4th century. In addition to the two traditional figures, the sculptors give special prominence to the well. In the reliefs Jesus Christ assumes more decisively the figure of a teacher, through the scroll of the Law that he holds in his hand or the bundle of books beside the well. Basilical architecture, too, has provided two traditional examples, both in S. Apollinare Nuovo at Ravenna and in the baptistery of Naples; in the former, however, the well is replaced by a stream (cf. C. Ricci, Ravenna, 8th ed., Bergamo n.d., p. 79, fig. 68).
Other scenes of the S. are provided by African terracottas (F. Coudray La Blanchère - P. Gauckler, Catalogue du Musée Alaoui, I, Paris 1897, p. 209, pl. 37, 5), by gold and ivory objects, the pyxides of Leningrad, La Voulte-Chillac, and Cluny (late 5th–early 6th century; cf. G. Rohault de Fleury, La Messe. Etudes archéologiques, V, Paris 1887, pls. 359; 366; 367, 1), and by sacred goldsmithery. Finally, mention should be made of the tenth exterior panel of the dossal of the ivory cathedra of Massimiano at Ravenna, where new elements appear, such as the cross, the amphora, and so forth (cf. C. Cecchelli, La cattedra di Massimiano ed altri avori romano-orientali, Rome 1936, pp. 176–77, pl. 31).
The episode of the S. at the well continued to be represented in medieval and modern art: for example, in the Exultet of Pisa, in the mosaics of Monreale (13th century), in a bas-relief in the Louvre (14th century), in a remarkable small panel by Duccio (part of the Maestà, Siena), in a lunette by Giovanni Della Robbia (Florence, Bargello), and in paintings by Tintoretto (Florence, Uffizi), Lav. Fontana (Naples, Pinacoteca), P. Mignard (Paris, Louvre), etc.