Susanna and the Elders

Entry

According to the apocryphal story (Daniel 13:1-27), the beautiful young Susanna, the wife of Joachim, was accosted while bathing by two lecherous old men who propositioned her and threatened to accuse her of adultery with a (non-existent) young man if she did not accede to their demands. This drawing shows Susanna wincing at the suggestion and covering her breasts with her arm and her pubic area with a cloth. The man wearing a turban lays his hand on her shoulder (in an almost avuncular manner) while also warning her with his raised finger of the consequences of her failure to accommodate their wishes. The outstretched arm of his companion in the tall hat was drawn twice by Rembrandt, who covered the uppermost version with opaque white, which has now oxidized.

This subject, which has a pictorial tradition dating back to the Middle Ages, was portrayed by Rembrandt in two paintings and several drawings. One of the drawings, in the Kupferstichkabinett in Berlin (inv. no. KdZ 5296),³ is a copy of a painting of 1614 by his teacher, Pieter Lastman, which is also preserved in Berlin, in the Gemäldegalerie (inv. no. 1719).⁴ This drawn copy was the starting point for Rembrandt’s involvement with this theme. In an upright painting in the Mauritshuis in The Hague (inv. no. 147),⁵ Rembrandt took the figure of Susanna out of context and portrayed her almost on her own at her bath, although we do catch a glimpse of one of the elders lurking in the bushes. This painting is dated 1636.⁶ Rembrandt’s second painting of the subject, also in the Gemäldegalerie (inv. no. 828E), is horizontal and bears the date 1647.⁷ This work, however, was probably started much earlier, since a directly related pen sketch for one of the elders, in the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne (inv. no. 357-4),⁸ can be dated to the end of the 1630s by virtue of its media and draughtsmanship. Another drawing connected with the painting of 1647, a study for the figure of Susanna, also in the Kupferstichkabinett (inv. no. KdZ 5264),⁹ is likewise dated 1647, and the investigations of the RRP made it clear that it, too, is a preparatory study for the final version of the picture rather than a reiteration of it, as once thought.¹⁰

The precise way in which the present drawing and another sheet in the Kupferstichkabinett – a vertical pen sketch of Susanna and the Elders (inv. no. KdZ 1130)¹¹ – are related to the paintings of this subject remains an open question. On stylistic grounds, both drawings must be dated after the completion of the Berlin painting in 1647. They are reversed variants of both of the earlier painted compositions. The elders are similar in type, but in the two drawings they are on Susanna’s left and her body is in profile to the right, and she turns to look back at them over her shoulder instead of out at the viewer. The Berlin composition is somewhat further removed from Rembrandt’s other representations. The scene, portrayed from the front at an oblique angle, shows the elders forcing themselves onto Susanna from the rear while she stands in the water up to above her knees. She is closed off by a stone wall to her right and left, so there is no means of escape. By choosing a vertical format, the figures are placed in the middle of the scene, around a central axis. The open area on the right side of the Amsterdam drawing strengthens the concentration of the figures, a feature often found in Rembrandt’s drawings.

The dating of these two additional drawings of the Susanna theme is a matter of debate. Although the present drawing was traditionally dated around 1647, to coincide with the Berlin painting, two early authors suggested a dating of circa 1650.¹² In my opinion, the sheet, with its refined handling, restrained but varied pen work and shading by means of delicate parallel hatching with a half-dry pen, does indeed have more in common with works from the beginning of the 1650s, such as The Crucifixion in the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm (inv. no. 2006),¹³ especially the area on the left with the men with raised arms. Our own David Hearing the News of Uriah’s Death of circa 1650 (inv. no. RP-T-1930-10), with its fine lines and shadows and the restricted number of broad accents, is also similar. Although there are some strong accents to be seen in the Susanna and the Elders, they are not as broad or as heavy as are typical of drawings from the second half of the 1640s – for example, the Studies for the Sick Woman in the ‘Hundred Guilder Print’ (inv. no. RP-T-1964-127(R)), Daniel in the Lions’ Den (inv. no. RP-T-1930-17) and Cottage with White Paling among Trees (inv. no. RP-T-1981-1). The other Berlin drawing of Susanna and the Elders is also datable later, to the mid-1650s.

The shaded passages in grey wash, on the other hand, are a later addition, as is also the case in other drawings (e.g. inv. nos. RP-T-1930-63, RP-T-1901-A-4523 and RP-T-1930-20).

Peter Schatborn, 2017