Susanna and the Elders: a Baroque goldmine of harassment and commissions

Susanna and the Elders: harassment as a Baroque painting genre

No Baroque painter needed to undress Susanna to tell the biblical story; almost all of them did it anyway, and with a commercial effectiveness we would today call marketing. Between 1517 and 1655, the episode from the Book of Daniel became a goldmine: two elders harass a woman in her bath, and the results now hang all over the world.

The tour begins at the Uffizi with Lorenzo Lotto, who in 1517 had the idea of including in the painting the scrolls with the elders' false accusations: "I would rather die than sin," facing the rigged witness. A judicial verdict painted before the verdict itself. Then came Tintoretto in 1555-1556: his Susanna is not assaulted, but watched. Mirror, pearls, perfume and a magpie – a symbol of gossip – turn the scene into a manual of voyeurism.

Rubens produced at least three versions (1607 in the Borghese Gallery, 1610 at the Real Academia de San Fernando and another at the Alte Pinakothek around 1630). The Rome one is the most cynical: an elder puts his finger to his lips, the universal gesture of "shut up and obey." The Fleming, a diplomat and courtier, knew what sold: guilt and titillation with Catholic blessing.

In 1610, the same year as the Madrid version, Artemisia Gentileschi painted her Susanna for Weissenstein Castle. Nothing like the pose. Her woman has her arms tensed and her jaw clenched; she is not crying for help, she is issuing a warning. It is the difference between painting harassment from the outside and painting it from within, and it shows in every brushstroke.

Honthorst closed the circle in 1655: the elder's hand pulls at Susanna's white cloak. There is no ambiguity. In between, Veronese, Guercino, Rembrandt and Jordaens tried out their variations: Venetian luxury, contemplative modesty, psychological terror or the most grotesque version, with two caricatured elders lying in wait.

Collecting as a confession of tastes

The cold numbers give the buyers away. The Prado holds around 90 works by Rubens, many commissioned and purchased by Philip IV, a monarch who collected Counter-Reformation propaganda with a dash of nudity. The Gemäldegalerie in Berlin, on the other hand, owns 20 Rembrandts assembled by the Hohenzollerns, a Protestant court that preferred psychological drama to carnal display.

The awkward question

When a viewer asks whether it was necessary to show Susanna as an "immodest woman," the answer is uncomfortable: no, it was not necessary. It was profitable. Baroque art lived on commissions, and the commissions were signed by powerful men who wanted to see flesh with a biblical justification. Guercino, considered "minor" for not selling the titillation, proves that the story could be told without turning the victim into a lure.

As long as museums keep hanging these versions without a caption explaining them, the controversy will stay alive. But the canvas has already done its job: four centuries later, we are still arguing about who is looking at whom.