Susanna and the Elders

In a letter dated 2 January 1975, Dr. Erich Schleier noted that this painting was a rare easel picture by Lanfranco (transcribed in R. Simon, loc. cit.). Schleier further noted that Lanfranco drew inspiration from a circa 1601 composition by his master, Annibale Carracci, which today is best known from a version by Domenichino, dated 1604 (Galleria Doria Pamphilj, Rome; R.E. Spear, Domenichino, New Haven and London, 1982, no. 8, pl. 9). The two old men beside Susanna similarly appear in a circa 1630 fresco, which Lanfranco painted for the Villa Varesi (now Villa Muti) at Frascati and that Schleier considers to be contemporary to the present painting (see E. Schleier, `Un nuovo dipinto del Lanfranco e la sua attivita giovanile', Paragone, CLXXVII, 1964, fig. 62). Bellori records that Lanfranco himself made a copy of Annibale’s painting (G.P. Bellori, The Lives of Annibale and Agostino Carracci, translated by C. Enggass, University Park, 1968, p. 72).
Taken from the Apocrypha, the story of Susanna and the Elders relates how the eponymous heroine, the virtuous wife of a prosperous Babylonian Jew, was surprised while bathing by two elders of the community who had contrived to watch her and take advantage of her vulnerability. Threatened that unless she surrendered herself they would testify that they had witnessed her committing adultery, she refused to comply, crying out to safeguard her honor. She was subsequently convicted on their falsified evidence and condemned to death, but the prophet Daniel cross-examined the two elders separately and, finding conflicting details in their evidence, proved her innocence.