Susanna and the Elders in art

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 3rd/early 4th centuries and are still being created.

The story has been portrayed by many artists, particularly in the early Christian and late Renaissance and Baroque periods. The bathing Susanna was first shown fully clothed and served as a symbol of faith and marital chastity; in the 15th 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 images of Susanna by capturing her extreme distress during the encounter.