(Orta di Atella 1585–1656 Naples)
Susanna and the Elders,
oil on canvas, 146 x 175 cm, framed

Provenance:
Private European collection;
where acquired by the present owner

We are grateful to Sebastian Schütze for confirming the attribution after examining the present painting in the original.

The biblical subject of Susanna and the Elders was frequently represented in Neapolitan painting during the first half of the seventeenth century, and Stanzione repeated this composition, a version is conserved in the Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, Nebraska (inv. no. 1983.27, oil on canvas, 152 x 178 cm, signed) and another is in a private collection, Naples (see S. Schütze and T.C. Willette, Massimo Stanzione, l’opera completa, Naples 1992. p.233, A86 and A86.a, ill. p. 365, figs. 286 and 287).

Massimo Stanzione focuses the narrative and psychological point of this painting on the monumental figure of Susanna, in the foreground, wearing a brightly blue coloured robe. Her partially undressed pale figure contrasts with the coarse features and of the Elders, in the background, who emerge from the sombre wooded landscape background.

Schütze dates the present painting to Stanzione’s full maturity, to the 1640s and during this period, Stanzione was involved in the most significant commissions in Naples, mainly for ecclesiastical patrons and he executed the frescoes for the Chiesa del Gesù Nuovo, those in San Paolo Maggiore and in Santa Maria Regina Coeli.

Stanzione was one of the most celebrated Neapolitan painters of the period and dominated the extraordinary production of painting in Naples during the first half of the seventeenth century, which was a vibrant artistic centre at the time. He often visited the celebrated artist Artemisia Gentileschi in her studio to watch her work, during her first sojourn in Naples from 1630 to 1638. Indeed, strong influences exist between the 1640s production of Stanzione and Artemisia and this is demonstrated in the comparison between the present painting and Artemisia Gentileschi’s Bathsheba in the Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, Ohio, dated to 1637–1640.