Guido Reni, Susannah and the Elders

Here, Guido Reni has illustrated an episode from an apocryphal addition to the Old Testament’s Book of Daniel. The account tells of two lecherous elders who lusted after Susannah, a beautiful young woman. They hid in the garden where she came to bathe and threatened to accuse her of adultery – a crime punishable by death – if she refused to give in to their desires.

We see the moment when Susannah begins to undress and the men emerge and accost her. One grabs at her robe and puts his fingers to his lips, commanding her silence, while the other raises a hand, ready to touch her. Susannah looks on in shock and grasps at the yellow drapery around her, attempting to cover her breasts. A virtuous wife, she refused the men’s advances and they carried out their threat. She was later arrested for the crime of adultery, but her innocence was proven when the false accusers were cross-examined and caught in their lie.

The flesh tints of the male figures are a deep earthy orange colour (almost matching their robes), contrasting greatly with the pale, creamy hue of Susannah’s body. The varying skin tones may be a rhetorical device used by Reni: Susannah’s bright paleness could allude to her innocence and purity, while the ruddy complexions of the men may reflect their lecherous intentions.

In the 1590s Reni studied at the Carraccis‘ artists’ academy in Bologna. Carlo Cesare Malvasia, Reni’s biographer, relates that Ludovico Carracci, the eldest of the three Carracci painters, was instrumental in Reni’s training. Ludovico painted his own version of the subject around a decade before Reni completed his work. Though the two compositions appear in different formats, they share several similarities: in both, Susannah is on the right, pulling her robes from the grasp of one of the men, while they lean across a stone parapet on the left, dressed in red and orange draperies. The same variation in flesh tones is also apparent in Ludovico’s painting, suggesting that Reni may have taken inspiration from the work of his former master in the creation of his own Susannah and the Elders.

This painting hung in the Palazzo Lancellotti, Rome, in 1640, alongside Lot and his Daughters leaving Sodom. It was believed for some time that these paintings were created as pendants, as they are similar in size and each addresses an Old Testament subject with erotic undertones. However, cleaning in 1984 revealed brushwork that suggests different dates for the works – Susannah and the Elders was painted later than Lot and his Daughters and the two were likely not originally intended as a pair.