In the first of these three articles, I looked at paintings telling the story of Susanna and the Elders, from the Old Testament book of Daniel. I have focussed on those showing Susanna in her garden with the elders, up to the point where they proposition her with their piece of blackmail. Painted over the same period as Artemisia Gentileschi’s works telling this story are major works by Rubens, Rembrandt, and Jordaens.

Peter Paul Rubens’ first painting from 1609-10 isn’t far removed from Gentileschi’s earliest version, also of 1610. The elders are now clambering over a balcony wall, touching Susanna’s body, and pulling back the clothes with which she is trying to cover herself. The elder at the right looks particularly aggressive, as if he could rape her there and then. For her part, Susanna is flushed, afraid, and struck with panic, as she tries to defend herself against their attack.

The version painted by Rubens during his retirement, between 1636-39, recasts those same basic elements in a broader view, with some subtle but important shifts in his visual cues. Although the elders are still clambering over a low wall, their expressions have softened, and that of the man in red looks unaggressive. Susanna is seen sitting on her clothing, on a low stool, and is trying to pull a dark cloak over her body. Her small lapdog is running towards the men, and its barking may have acted as the alarm to Susanna that she has been seen. Rubens also times this significantly earlier, before the elders put their proposition to Susanna; indeed at this stage they may not even have formulated their blackmail.

One of Rembrandt’s sketches for his late painting of this story has survived, as Seated Female Nude from about 1647. It shows a curiously thin woman, stripped to the waist, as she washes herself, leaning over and looking up to her left. This is similar to the pose used in his first painting of the story, which he elaborated late in his career, in 1647.

Rembrandt’s finished painting from 1647 isn’t one of his best. Susanna has one foot in the water of a large pool, the other still on the step behind, as she appears to be trying to bathe. One of the elders is sat beside her, his left hand pulling at the cloth wrapped around Susanna’s body. He is looking intently into the distance, as if waiting for her answer to his proposition. The other elder stands further back, more detached from events. Susanna clasps her hands in front of her, as if in prayer, and looks up, slightly afraid, towards the sky. Behind her are richly-jewelled and decorated scarlet clothes, and a pair of matching slippers. Rembrandt’s psychological treatment appears too subtle, leaving the simple but profound issues unclear.

A few years later, Jacob Jordaens’ Susanna of 1653 couldn’t be more different from Rembrandt’s. The grotesquely wizened elders are surely chancing their luck against a woman who appears to have a promising future in professional wrestling. Jordaens has, though, picked up on the potential of personal jewellery, combs, and the like, presumably from Tintoretto and Rubens before, and borrowed the lapdog from Rubens too.

The appearance of those wrinkled and edentulous elders opens up one of the more unpleasant issues raised by paintings of this story. Clearly, all four actors – Susanna, the elders, and Daniel – were Israelites, thus Jewish. But with the rise of anti-Semitism across Europe, the elders have been used as figures in its propaganda. Jordaens’ Susanna looks very gentile, but his elders are caricatures of Jews, with hooked noses, and one wearing a Kippah. Dangerous territory indeed.

Antoine Coypel painted his account between 1695-96, preferring to show Susanna Accused of Adultery rather than the elders spying on Susanna. Here she has the appearance of the Madonna as she looks up to heaven, one of her children embracing her at the waist. Behind and to the right of her, an elder rests his right hand on her head to indicate the capital nature of her offence, while another looks at her aghast.

The eighteenth century brought more paintings of Susanna and the elders, but most bring little new to its development, until the nineteenth century.

Goya’s late and tiny watercolour on ivory has been identified as showing Susanna and the Elders, making it one of the most unusual treatments.