Susannah and the Elders (Veronese)

Last updated
Susannah and the Elders
Veronese - Susanna e i vecchioni.jpg
Artist Paolo Veronese
Yearc. 1580
MediumOil on canvas
Dimensions111 cm× 245 cm(44 in× 96 in)
Location Palazzo Bianco, Genoa

Susannah and the Elders (Italian : Susanna e i vecchioni) is a circa 1580 oil-on-canvas painting depicting Susannah and the Elders by Paolo Veronese. It is now on permanent display at the Palazzo Bianco in Genoa. It is first recorded as being in Genoa in the 18th century. Previous owners include Gaspar Méndez de Haro, 7th Marquis of Carpio, a 17th-century Spanish collector.

A wall surrounds and encloses the scene. A small dog—a symbol of fidelity and incorruptibility—and a statue of a satyr that looks lewdly at Susannah are also depicted in the painting. Veronese used these three symbols of the wall, dog, and satyr in other paintings of the same biblical theme and around the same time period in similar works preserved at the Louvre in Paris. [1]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Satyr</span> Male nature spirit with horse or goat features found in Greek mythology

In Greek mythology, a satyr, also known as a silenus or silenos, and sileni (plural), is a male nature spirit with ears and a tail resembling those of a horse, as well as a permanent, exaggerated erection. Early artistic representations sometimes include horse-like legs, but, by the sixth century BC, they were more often represented with human legs. Comically hideous, they have mane-like hair, bestial faces, and snub noses and they always are shown naked. Satyrs were characterized by their ribaldry and were known as lovers of wine, music, dancing, and women. They were companions of the god Dionysus and were believed to inhabit remote locales, such as woodlands, mountains, and pastures. They often attempted to seduce or rape nymphs and mortal women alike, usually with little success. They are sometimes shown masturbating or engaging in bestiality.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Erotic art in Pompeii and Herculaneum</span> Aspect of art in ancient Rome

Erotic art in Pompeii and Herculaneum has been both exhibited as art and censored as pornography. The Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum around the bay of Naples were destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD, thereby preserving their buildings and artefacts until extensive archaeological excavations began in the 18th century. These digs revealed the cities to be rich in erotic artefacts such as statues, frescoes, and household items decorated with sexual themes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jacob Jordaens</span> Flemish painter (1593–1678)

Jacob (Jacques) Jordaens was a Flemish painter, draughtsman and a designer of tapestries and prints. He was a prolific artist who created biblical, mythological, and allegorical compositions, genre scenes, landscapes, illustrations of Flemish sayings and portraits. After the death of Rubens and Anthony van Dyck, he became the leading Flemish Baroque painter of his time. Unlike those illustrious contemporaries he never travelled abroad to study the Antique and Italian painting and, except for a few short trips to locations elsewhere in the Low Countries, he resided in Antwerp his entire life. He also remained largely indifferent to Rubens and van Dyck's intellectual and courtly aspirations. This attitude was expressed in his art through a lack of idealistic treatment which contrasted with that of these contemporaries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paolo Veronese</span> Italian Renaissance painter

Paolo Caliari, known as Paolo Veronese, was an Italian Renaissance painter based in Venice, known for extremely large history paintings of religion and mythology, such as The Wedding at Cana (1563) and The Feast in the House of Levi (1573). Included with Titian, a generation older, and Tintoretto, a decade senior, Veronese is one of the "great trio that dominated Venetian painting of the cinquecento" and the Late Renaissance in the 16th century. Known as a supreme colorist, and after an early period with Mannerism, Paolo Veronese developed a naturalist style of painting, influenced by Titian.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Susanna (Book of Daniel)</span> Biblical episode and artistic theme

Susanna, also called Susanna and the Elders, is a narrative included in the Book of Daniel by the Catholic Church, Oriental Orthodox Churches and Eastern Orthodox Churches. It is one of the additions to Daniel, placed in the Apocrypha by Protestants, with Anabaptists, Lutherans, Anglicans and Methodists regarding it as non-canonical but useful for purposes of edification. The text is not included in the Jewish Tanakh and is not mentioned in early Jewish literature, although it does appear to have been part of the original Septuagint from the 2nd century BC, and was revised by Theodotion, a Hellenistic Jewish redactor of the Septuagint text.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Comus</span> In Greek mythology, the god of festivity and son of Dionysus

In Greek mythology, Comus is the god of festivity, revels and nocturnal dalliances. Son and cup-bearer of the god Dionysus, he was represented as a winged youth or a child-like satyr. His mythology occurs only in later antiquity. During his festivals in Ancient Greece, men and women exchanged clothes. He was depicted as a young man on the point of unconsciousness from drink, with a wreath of flowers on his head.

<i>The Wedding at Cana</i> (Veronese) Painting by Paolo Veronese

The Wedding at Cana, by Paolo Veronese, is a representational painting that depicts the biblical story of the Wedding at Cana, at which Jesus miraculously converts water into red wine. Executed in the Mannerist style (1520–1600) of the late Renaissance, the large-format oil painting comprehends the stylistic ideal of compositional harmony, as practised by the artists Leonardo, Raphael, and Michelangelo.

<i>Venus and Cupid with a Satyr</i> Painting by Antonio da Correggio

Venus and Cupid with a Satyr is a painting by the Italian High Renaissance artist Antonio da Correggio. It is now in the Musée du Louvre in Paris.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Soave, Veneto</span> Comune in Veneto, Italy

Soave is a small comune of the Veneto region in the Province of Verona, northern Italy, with a population of roughly 6,800 people.

<i>The Peasant Wedding</i> Painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder

The Peasant Wedding is a 1567 genre painting by the Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painter and printmaker Pieter Bruegel the Elder, one of his many depicting peasant life. It is now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. Pieter Bruegel the Elder enjoyed painting peasants and different aspects of their lives in so many of his paintings that he has been called Peasant-Bruegel, but he was an intellectual, and many of his paintings have a symbolic meaning as well as a moral aspect.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hellenistic art</span> Art movement

Hellenistic art is the art of the Hellenistic period generally taken to begin with the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and end with the conquest of the Greek world by the Romans, a process well underway by 146 BC, when the Greek mainland was taken, and essentially ending in 30 BC with the conquest of Ptolemaic Egypt following the Battle of Actium. A number of the best-known works of Greek sculpture belong to this period, including Laocoön and His Sons, Venus de Milo, and the Winged Victory of Samothrace. It follows the period of Classical Greek art, while the succeeding Greco-Roman art was very largely a continuation of Hellenistic trends.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">San Francesco della Vigna</span> Roman Catholic church in Venice, Italy

San Francesco della Vigna is a Roman Catholic church in the Sestiere of Castello in Venice, northern Italy.

<i>The Feast in the House of Levi</i> Painting by Paolo Veronese

The Feast in the House of Levi or Christ in the House of Levi is a 1573 oil painting by Italian painter Paolo Veronese and one of the largest canvases of the 16th century, measuring 555 cm × 1,309 cm. It is now in the Gallerie dell'Accademia, in Venice. It was painted by Veronese for a wall of a Dominican friary called the refectory of the Basilica di Santi Giovanni e Paolo.

<i>Bathsheba at her Bath</i> (Veronese) Painting by Paolo Veronese

Bathsheba at her Bath is an oil-on-canvas painting by Italian Renaissance painter Paolo Veronese, dated around 1575 and now in the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon, France.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Last Supper in Christian art</span>

The Last Supper of Jesus and the Twelve Apostles has been a popular subject in Christian art, often as part of a cycle showing the Life of Christ. Depictions of the Last Supper in Christian art date back to early Christianity and can be seen in the Catacombs of Rome.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Abbey of Santa Giustina</span> 10th-century Benedictine abbey in Padua, Italy

The Abbey of Santa Giustina is a 10th-century Benedictine abbey complex located in front of the Prato della Valle in central Padua, region of Veneto, Italy. Adjacent to the former monastery is the basilica church of Santa Giustina, initially built in the 6th century, but whose present form derives from a 17th-century reconstruction.

<i>Jupiter and Antiope</i> (Watteau) Painting by Antoine Watteau

Jupiter and Antiope is an oil painting by the French artist Antoine Watteau. It is also known as the Satyr and the Sleeping Nymph and was probably painted between 1714 and 1719. Intended to be placed over a doorway, today it hangs in the Musée du Louvre in Paris.

<i>Susanna and the Elders</i> (Gentileschi, Stamford) Painting by Artemisia Gentileschi

Susanna and the Elders is a painting by the Italian artist Artemisia Gentileschi. It is signed with Gentileschi's name and the date of 1622. The painting is in the collection at Burghley House near Stamford, Lincolnshire, England.

<i>Saint Anthony Preaching to the Fish</i> Painting of Anthony of Padua by Paolo Veronese

Saint Anthony Preaching to the Fish is a 1580–1585 oil-on-canvas painting of Anthony of Padua by Paolo Veronese, now in the Galleria Borghese in Rome. Its original location is unknown, though its medium dimensions of 104 centimetres (41 in) by 150 centimetres (59 in) mean it may have been painted for the side wall of a chapel or as part of a cycle of paintings for a small school (scuola) somewhere in Veneto. It entered the collection of Cardinal Scipione Borghese as a 1607 gift from Francesco Barbaro.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Musei di Strada Nuova</span> Art museums in Genoa, Italy

The Musei di Strada Nuova in the Italian city of Genoa comprise three museums which together form a single complex, housed in the Palazzo Rosso, the Palazzo Bianco and the Palazzo Tursi, all of which are located along the Via Garibaldi. The Palazzo Tursi is also Genoa's city hall.

References

  1. François Crastre, Veronese, California University, 1912, 2008, p. 75