Susanna
c. 1580s
Painter, Venetian, 1560 - 1635
The story of the beautiful and chaste Susanna is recounted in Daniel 13. Two elders of Babylon lusted for Susanna, the wife of the priest Joachim. They spied upon her as she bathed, then threatened to falsely accuse her of adultery with another man unless she submitted to their advances. Although the subject can be interpreted as a parable of justice—Susanna is ultimately vindicated—artists of the period clearly favored the image of the nude Susanna at the bath for its sensual appeal.
The painting may have originally been part of a decorative ensemble of six biblical scenes that hung above a series of doors. The nude figure is stylistically comparable to those in other paintings that can be identified as Tintoretto studio products of the 1570s and 1580s. These nude figures can be distinguished from those by Jacopo Tintoretto himself, which show a more convincing sense of the figures’ underlying anatomy, as well as more varied and dynamic compositions. Here, Susanna is a much simpler conception, focusing on the nude figure, with only the barest allusion to narrative elements in the two sketchy figures of the elders in the background.
The identification of different hands in the Tintoretto shop remains a challenge. Here, however, the maid’s facial type is one that appears regularly in paintings that can be associated with Domenico, Tintoretto’s son. The picture can thus provisionally be assigned to Domenico, working in his father’s studio.
West Building Main Floor, Gallery 28
Artwork overview
-
Medium
oil on canvas
-
Credit Line
-
Dimensions
overall: 150.2 x 102.6 cm (59 1/8 x 40 3/8 in.)
framed: 185.7 x 137.8 x 10.8 cm (73 1/8 x 54 1/4 x 4 1/4 in.) -
Accession
1939.1.231
More About this Artwork
Artwork history & notes
Provenance
Probably Senator Lorenzo Dolfin [or Delfino, 1591-1663], Venice, by 1642.[1] George Oakley Fisher [1859-1933], Egremont House, Sudbury, England.[2] (David M. Koetser Gallery, London). (Count Alessandro Contini Bonacossi, Florence); sold June 1936 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[3] gift 1939 to NGA.
[1] In a passage first linked to the NGA painting by Wilhelm Suida (manuscript opinion in NGA curatorial files), Tintoretto's biographer Carlo Ridolfi wrote “Il Signor Lorenzo Delfino Senator ha … sei historie del vecchio testmento collocate sopra poste [presumed to be an error for “porte,” doors]; cioè …Susana nel giardino, & i due vecchi, che spuntano di lontano da un pergolato….” (“Senator Lorenzo Delfino has. . .six scenes from the Old Testament placed above doors; namely. . .Susanna in the garden, and the two old men, emerging in the distance from a pergola. . ."); Vita di Giacopo Robusti detto il Tintoretto, Venice, 1642: 72. The other subjects mentioned by Ridolfi as part of the ensemble were Adam and Eve, Hagar and the Angel, Lot and his Daughters, Abraham Sacrificing Isaac, and Ruth and Boaz. All seem to be lost. See also: Carlo Ridolfi, Le maraviglie dell’arte, overo Le vite de gl’illustri pittori veneti, e dello Stato, 2 vols., Venice, 1648: 2:45; Carlo Ridolfi, Le maraviglie dell’arte, overo Le vite de gl’illustri pittori veneti, e dello Stato (Venice, 1648), edited by Detlev von Hadeln, 2 vols., Berlin, 1914-1924: 2(1924):54.
If the painting described by Ridolfi is, as scholars believe, the NGA painting, it appears as item 45 of page 286 in a partition document dated 26 November 1655: "Tintoretto vecchio, Susana insediata da vicchi." See: The Getty Provenance Index Databases, Archival Inventories, no. I-3348 (Dolfin); and Linda Borean, "Appunti per una storia del collezionismo a Venezia nel Seicento: la pinacoteca di Lorenzo Dolfin," _Studi Veneziani_ 38 (1999): 259-291.
[2] Fisher was a book collector and antiquarian; the NGA painting does not appear in the several sales of his collection held by his executors in London in 1934 (see NGA curatorial files).
[3] The bill of sale for a group of paintings, including the Tintoretto, is dated 1 June 1936 (copy in NGA curatorial files). See also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/2025.
Associated Names
Exhibition History
1996
Obras Maestras de la National Gallery of Art de Washington, Museo Nacional de Antropología, Mexico City, 1996-1997, unnumbered catalogue, 48-49, color repro.
1999
Masterpieces from the National Gallery of Art, Washington, Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art; Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, 1999, no. 79, repro.
Bibliography
1642
Ridolfi, Carlo. Vita di Giacopo Robusti detto il Tintoretto. Venice, 1642: 72.
1648
Ridolfi, Carlo. Le maraviglie dell’arte, overo Le vite de gl'illustri pittori veneti, e dello Stato. 2 vols. Venice, 1648: 2:45.
1914
Ridolfi, Carlo. Le maraviglie dell’arte, overo Le vite de gl'illustri pittori veneti, e dello Stato (Venice, 1648). Edited by Detlev von Hadeln. 2 vols. Berlin, 1914-1924: 2(1924):54.
1941
Preliminary Catalogue of Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1941: 195, no. 342.
1942
Book of Illustrations. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 246, repro. 196.
1957
Berenson, Bernard. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance. Venetian School. 2 vols. London, 1957: 1:183.
1959
Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 205, repro.
1965
Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 128.
1968
National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 115, repro.
1970
De Vecchi, Pierluigi. L’opera completa del Tintoretto. Milan, 1970: 115, no. 216.
1972
Fredericksen, Burton B., and Federico Zeri. Census of Pre-Nineteenth Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections. Cambridge, Mass., 1972: 201.
1973
Shapley, Fern Rusk. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XVI-XVIII Century. London, 1973: 58, fig. 110.
1975
European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 340, repro.
1979
Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1979: 1:472-473; 2:pl. 337.
1982
Pallucchini, Rodolfo, and Paola Rossi. Tintoretto: le opere sacre e profane. 2 vols. Venice, 1982: 1:160, 210, and 264, no. 377; 2:fig. 487.
1984
Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 227, no. 286, color repro.
1985
European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 391, repro.
1991
Kopper, Philip. America's National Gallery of Art: A Gift to the Nation. New York, 1991: 184, color repro.
1998
Apostolos-Cappadona, Diana. “Toilet Scenes." In Encyclopedia of Comparative Iconography: Themes Depicted in Works of Art. Edited by Helene E. Roberts. 2 vols. Chicago, 1998: 2:874.
1999
Borean, Linda. "Appunti per una storia del collezionismo a Venezia nel Seicento: la pinacoteca di Lorenzo Dolfin." Studi Veneziani 38 (1999): 274, 286, 298 fig. 6.
2009
Echols, Robert, and Frederick Ilchman. “Toward a New Tintoretto Catalogue, with a Checklist of Revised Attributions and a New Chronology.” In Jacopo Tintoretto: Actas del congreso internacional/Proceedings of the International Symposium, Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, February 26-27, 2007. Madrid, 2009: 143, no. S36.
Wikidata ID
Q20176783