Susanna and the Elders is an Old Testament story of a woman falsely accused of adultery after she refuses two men who, after discovering one another in the act of spying on her while she bathes, conspire to blackmail her for sex. Depictions of the story date back to the late 3rd/early 4th centuries and are still being created.
The story has been portrayed by many artists, particularly in the early Christian and late Renaissance and Baroque periods. The bathing Susanna was first shown fully clothed and served as a symbol of faith and marital chastity; in the 15th century more images depicted her nude in her bath and became increasingly lascivious. Modern scholars explain this by pointing out the appeal to male artists and patrons of a portrayal of a naked woman watched by sexually aroused fully-clothed men. The portrayals by Artemisia Gentileschi were among the earliest to depart from the traditional portrayals of Susanna as not being distressed during the encounter.
Story
In the thirteenth chapter of the Book of Daniel (or the Book of Susanna in the Old Testament Apocrypha), Susanna, a young and beautiful married woman, is lusted after by two well-respected men. One day they catch one another spying on her as she bathes. Together they hatch a plot to blackmail her into having sex with them by telling her they will testify they caught her committing adultery, which is punishable by death, if she does not comply. She refuses, and they accuse her in front of the community, testifying that they saw her having sex with a young man under a tree in her husband's garden. Susanna is condemned to be executed and casts her eyes to heaven in a prayer for help. Appearing suddenly, the young Daniel objects to the verdict and insists on cross-examining the two men separately, asking them under what kind of tree the adulterers were having sex. The first man says a mastic, the second an oak, and the two men are caught in their lies and put to death themselves.
Early Christian and medieval depictions
Susanna is among the earliest identifiable biblical women to appear in Christian art. She is one of a group of individuals from the Old Testament – along with Noah, Abraham and Isaac, Moses, Daniel and the Three Hebrew Children, and Jonah – invoked in the Christian commendatio animae (commendation of souls), a third-century prayer said over the dying, which is still incorporated in the Roman Catholic liturgy.Jeffrey Spier, ed., Picturing the Bible: The Earliest Christian Art (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007), 8–10. These same figures appear on catacomb walls and marble sarcophagi from the late third century onward, with their hands lifted in prayer (orant) because they are in peril so great that only the intervention of God can save them. To early Christians, images of Susanna and the others represented the personal salvation available through God’s grace and Jesus’ sacrifice.Robin Margaret Jensen, Understanding Early Christian Art (London: Routledge, 2000), 27, 36, 78.
Among the earliest images of Susanna and the Elders are those in the catacombs of Priscilla in Rome, one of the oldest and largest catacomb systems in Rome, possibly used for Christian burials as early as 200. The paintings, from the late third/early fourth century, are in an underground room that has come to be known as the cappella greca (Greek Chapel), after two Greek memorial inscriptions found there.Robert Milburn, Early Christian Art and Architecture (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1988), 25. Three scenes from Susanna’s story are the largest and most prominent in the room and include her accusation by the Elders.Kathryn Smith, “Inventing Marital Chastity: The Iconography of Susanna and the Elders in Early Christian Art,” Oxford Art Journal 16, no. 1 (1992): 6–9. An unusual allegorical example of the image of Susanna and the Elders from the same period is found in the Roman catacomb of Praetextatus: a sheep labeled “SUSANNA” stands between two wolves, one of whom is captioned “SENIORIS” (elder). This representation may also be an allusion to attacks by heretics on orthodox believers (faithful sheep).Spier 2007, 267. Even more significant, this is an early example of an image in which a woman can be read as a symbol of Jesus, in this case the Agnus Dei, Lamb of God. Early theologians as prominent as Augustine, Ambrose, and Jerome associated Susanna with Jesus in their writings.Catherine Brown Tkacz, “Susanna as a Type of Christ,” Studies in Iconography 20 (1999): 102–3.
Many other images on catacomb walls or marble sarcophagi depict Susanna standing between the two Elders or between the two trees that represent their duplicity. A woman between two trees might also be a conflation of Susanna and a deceased Christian woman in the garden of Paradise: Susanna was praised by the early Church as an embodiment of modesty, innocence, and marital virtue, and she could have appropriately decorated the tomb of any Christian woman of good character.Smith 1992, 12.
Besides many early images on catacomb walls and sarcophagi, Susanna’s story was depicted on objects of glass and ivory, like the Brescia Casket, an important ivory reliquary box from fourth-century Italy.Carolyn Joslin Watson, “The Program of the Brescia Casket,” Gesta 20, no. 2 (1981): 286.
The Susanna Crystal, also known as the Lothair Crystal, is a mid–9th-century engraved rock crystal in a gilded copper frame made in the Lotharingia region of northwest Europe. Despite its small size (4½ inches in diameter), it is carved with eight vignettes of the story of Susanna, with inscriptions from the Latin Vulgate Bible accompanying each scene. The figures are in the School of Reims style found in works commissioned by Bishop Ebbo of that city, such as the famous Utrecht Psalter. An inscription on the back of the crystal names Lothair II, King of Lotharingia, as the commissioner."Lothair Crystal". The British Museum. 20 January 2010. Archived from the original on 20 January 2010. Retrieved 24 May 2021. The crystal was possibly a gift from Lothair around 865 to placate his queen, Theutberga, who had suffered through a Susanna-like ordeal: in an attempt to put her aside for his mistress, Lothair had two archbishops falsely accuse her of incest, but she was exonerated at the demand of Pope Nicholas I. Thereafter, royal women invoked her when they were being mistreated.Genevra Kornbluth, “The Susanna Crystal of Lothair II: Chastity, the Church, and Royal Justice,” Gesta 31, no. 1 (1992): 25–39.
History of later portrayals Aside from a very few exceptions, Susanna is always shown fully clothed in the bathing scene in early Christian and medieval art. In the fifteenth century, however, although some artists continued to depict her in modest attire, an increasing number of images portray her with her dress pulled above her knees or completely naked. Beginning about 1470, the nude Susanna is the subject of paintings by many artists, including artists who depicted the scene multiple times. The story has been portrayed especially often from the 1500s, when nudes came back into fashion. In practice it allowed artists the opportunity to display their skill in the depiction of the female nude, often for the pleasure of their male patrons.
According to Mary Garrard, the scene has been unusually attractive to male artists and male art patrons as "an opportunity for legitimized voyeurism", an appeal heightened by the fact the naked woman in the story was being watched by lechers, allowing both the artist and the viewer of the painting a point of view character in the scene. Garrard points out that it is significant that portrayals of The Judgement of Daniel and The Stoning of the Elders, the other two major vignettes from this story, are comparatively rare in art. Instead of focusing on truth discovered or justice meted out, nearly all portrayals focus on the naked or partially-naked woman being watched or importuned by sexually aroused fully-clothed men.
Garard argues that the possession of a woman who has clearly said "no" is in fact rape, and that the depictions of Susanna and the Elders as being from the point of view of the elders are depictions from the point of view of attempted rapists. Susanna's dilemma is most often painted as not her desire to avoid being victimized but instead whether or not to give in to her presumed natural desire to have sex with two elderly blackmailers.
Depictions Portrayals in paintings through the end of the 18th century, with few departures, tend to portray Susanna as making little protest and sometimes seeming to appear acquiescent.
During the Renaissance period there was an increased interest in and production of nudes, which had fallen out of interest during the Middle Ages. Production of paintings featuring naked women increased. Typical representations show Susanna protesting being watched mildly or not at all. Portrayals of the scene during this period typically emphasized the elders' point of view—the voyeurism they enjoyed, their anticipation of sex—and did not address Susanna's distress except to occasionally picture her with her eyes cast to heaven in a plea for help. Norma Broude called these and the similar depictions in Renaissance art blatant distortions of the biblical Susanna.
Goitrous neck motif A 2026 review by Joselv Albano and Janelle Lara Mirhan argued that a number of depictions from the Renaissance, Mannerist, and Baroque periods of Susanna and the Elders present Susanna with an enlarged or "goitrous" neck (see goitre). In their review of 27 paintings, the authors suggested that this feature may reflect a combination of endemic iodine deficiency in some artists' regions, the spread of stylistic conventions across schools in Europe, and period ideals linking a rounded neck with feminine beauty and virtue. They further argued that the motif may have helped artists visually reinforce Susanna's beauty and righteousness.
Treatments in the Baroque period were more likely to emphasize the point of view of Susanna, who is uncomfortable with or objects to being watched, while others continued to concentrate on the male gaze. In 17th-century portrayals, combining Susanna's rejection of the men's advances while gazing toward heaven became common, although in the biblical passage, she does not cast her eyes to heaven until after they have publicly accused her of adultery.
Modern representations depict Susanna as either alone, unaware of being watched, or uncomfortable with it. By the mid 19th century, portrayals often did not include the elders, and the only spectator was the viewer of the painting.
Artists creating multiple images Susanna and the Elders, like many scenes featuring naked women and clothed men, was a popular subject, and many artists created multiple paintings during their careers.
Tintoretto 1550–1580s
Rubens 1607–? Rubens in his late 1630s portrayal places Susanna under an apple tree rather than a mastic or oak, a nod to Eve, the garden of Eden, and resisting, according to Mark Leach, "supreme temptation"; according to Garrard, the implication by both Leach and Rubens is that Susanna had to be very strong-willed indeed to resist the overwhelming attraction of being coerced into sex by two elderly lechers. In 1886 Max Rooses called the Rubens depictions a "gallant enterprise mounted by two bold adventurers", which Garard called an example of a "remarkable testament to the indomitable male ego."
Artemisia Gentileschi 1610–1652