User:Nonnabede/Susanna and the Elders in art

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Susanna and the Elders is an Old Testament story of a woman falsely accused of adultery after she refuses two men who, after discovering one another in the act of spying on her while she bathes, conspire to blackmail her for sex. Depictions of the story date back to the late third/early fourth centuries and were still being created in the twentieth century. The story has been portrayed by many artists, particularly in the early Christian and late Renaissance and Baroque periods. Susanna was first shown fully clothed and served as a symbol of faith and marital chastity; in the fifteenth century, more images depicted her nude in her bath and became increasingly lascivious. Modern scholars explain this by pointing out the appeal to male artists and patrons of a portrayal of a naked woman watched by sexually aroused clothed men. The paintings by Artemisia Gentileschi were among the earliest to depart from such suggestive portrayals of Susanna by capturing her extreme distress during the encounter.

The story
In the thirteenth chapter of the Book of Daniel (or the Book of Susanna in the Old Testament Apocrypha), Susanna, a young and beautiful married woman, is lusted after by two well-respected men. One day they catch one another spying on her as she bathes. Together they hatch a plot to blackmail her into having sex with them by telling her they will testify they caught her committing adultery, which is punishable by death, if she does not comply. She refuses, and they accuse her in front of the community, testifying that they saw her having sex with a young man under a tree in her husband's garden. Susanna is condemned to be executed and casts her eyes to heaven in a prayer for help. Appearing suddenly, the young Daniel objects to the verdict and insists on cross-examining the two men separately, asking them under which tree the adulterers were having sex. The first man says a mastic, the second an oak, and the two men are caught in their lies and put to death themselves.

Early Christian and medieval depictions
Susanna is among the earliest identifiable biblical women to appear in Christian art. She is one of a group of individuals from the Old Testament – along with Noah, Abraham and Isaac, Moses, Daniel and the Three Hebrew Children, and Jonah – invoked in the Christian commendatio animae (commendation of souls), a third-century prayer said over the dying, which is still incorporated in the Roman Catholic liturgy. These same figures appear on catacomb walls and marble sarcophagi from the late third century onward, with their hands lifted in prayer (orant) because they are in peril so great that only the intervention of God can save them. To early Christians, images of Susanna and the others represented the personal salvation available through God’s grace and Jesus’ sacrifice.

Among the earliest images of Susanna and the Elders are those in the catacombs of Priscilla in Rome, one of the oldest and largest catacomb systems in Rome, possibly used for Christian burials as early as 200 CE. The paintings, from the late third/early fourth century, are in an underground room that has come to be known as the cappella greca (Greek Chapel), after two Greek memorial inscriptions found there. Three scenes from Susanna’s story are the largest and most prominent in the room and include her accusation by the Elders. An unusual allegorical example of the image of Susanna and the Elders from the same period is found in the Roman catacomb of Praetextatus:  a sheep labeled “SUSANNA” stands between two wolves, one of whom is captioned “SENIORIS” (elder). This representation may also be an allusion to attacks by heretics on orthodox believers (faithful sheep). Even more significant, this is an early example of an image in which a woman can be read as a symbol of Jesus, in this case the Agnus Dei, Lamb of God. Early theologians as prominent as Augustine, Ambrose, and Jerome associated Susanna with Jesus in their writings.

Many other images on catacomb walls or marble sarcophagi depict Susanna standing between the two Elders or between the two trees that represent their duplicity. A woman between two trees might also be a conflation of Susanna and a deceased Christian woman in the garden of Paradise:  Susanna was praised by the early Church as an embodiment of modesty, innocence, and marital virtue, and she could have appropriately decorated the tomb of any Christian woman of good character.

Besides many early images on catacomb walls and sarcophagi, Susanna’s story was depicted on objects of glass and ivory, like the Brescia Casket, an important ivory reliquary box from fourth-century Italy. The Susanna Crystal, also known as the Lothair Crystal, is a mid-ninth century engraved rock crystal in a gilded copper frame, made in northwest Europe. Despite its small size (4-1/2 inches in diameter), it is carved with eight vignettes from the story of Susanna, with inscriptions from the Latin Vulgate Bible accompanying each. The figures are in the School of Reims style found in works commissioned by Bishop Ebbo of that city, such as the famous Utrecht Psalter. An inscription on the back of the crystal names Lothair II, King of Lotharingia, as the commissioner. The crystal was probably a gift from Lothair around 865 to placate his queen, Theutberga, who had suffered through a Susanna-like ordeal:  in an attempt to put her aside for his mistress, Lothair had two archbishops falsely accuse her of incest, but she was exonerated at the demand of Pope Nicholas I.  Thereafter, royal women invoked her when they were being mistreated.

Aside from a very few exceptions, Susanna is always shown fully clothed in the bathing scene in early Christian and medieval art. In the fifteenth century, however, although some artists continued to depict her in modest attire, an increasing number of images portray her with her dress pulled above her knees or completely naked.