Susanna and the Elders

Hendrick Goltzius (Dutch, 1558–1617)

1615

Medium/TechniqueOil on canvas

Dimensions104 × 138 cm (40 15/16 × 54 5/16 in.)

Credit LineCharles H. Bayley Picture and Painting Fund

Accession number2000.974

On View

Not on view

ClassificationsPaintings

Collections

Europe

Description

Tales about morally righteous women, many from the Old Testament, became popular subjects among the Protestant Dutch, who held virtue in high esteem. Goltzius’s painting recounts the story of Susanna, beautiful and pious, discovered bathing in her garden by two lecherous elders. When she spurned their advances, they claimed to have found her with a lover. Their statement was ultimately revealed at court to be a lie, and Susanna was exonerated. Here the portrait-like character of the elders’ faces is surprising. The fountain may allude to their lustful thoughts—the dolphin is a traditional symbol of expectant desire.

InscriptionsMonogrammed and dated 1615Provenance1671, possibly Jan de Marez, Alkmaar [see note 1]. Probably between about 1745 and 1760, acquired by Queen Lovisa Ulrika of Sweden (b. 1720 - d. 1782), Stockholm [see note 2]. By 1911 until at least 1916, Anton Ridderstad (b. 1848 - d. 1933), Berga, Linköping, Sweden [see note 3]. October 31, 1927, sale, Bukowski, Stockholm, sold to Hammarlöf for 2600 kroner. By 1930, Otto Meyerson (dealer) [see note 4]; about 1936, sold by Meyerson to a private collection, Sweden and later Lugano, Switzerland, in which collection it remained until 1993. By 1996, Galerie Sanct Lucas, Vienna; 2000, sold by Galerie Sanct Lucas to the MFA. (Accession Date: October 25, 2000)

NOTES:
[1] Lawrence W. Nichols, The Paintings of Hendrick Goltzius, 1558-1617 (Doornspijk, 2013), p. 101, cat. no. A-10. [2] On the building of her collection, see Merit Lane, "An Eighteenth-Century Minerva: Lovisa Ulrika and Her Collections at Drottningholm Palance 1744-1777," Eighteenth-Century Studies 31, no. 4 (1998): 493-503.
[3] Published as being in his collection by Olof Granberg, Inventaire General des Tresors d'Art en Suede (Stockholm, 1911), p. 94, cat. no. 428 and O. Hirschmann, Hendrick Goltzius als Maler, 1600-1617 (The Hague, 1916), p. 80, cat. no. 28. [4] Olof Granberg, Svenska Konstsamlingarnas Historia, vol. 2 (Stockholm, 1930), p. 165. Subsequent provenance was provided by the Galerie Sanct Lucas at the time of purchase.