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Title:Susanna and the Elders
Artist:Workshop of Peter Paul Rubens (Flemish, Siegen 1577–1640 Antwerp)
Medium:Oil on wood
Dimensions:18 1/4 x 25 3/8 in. (46.4 x 64.5 cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:Marquand Collection, Gift of Henry G. Marquand, 1890
Object Number:91.26.4
Henry G. Marquand, New York (until 1890)
THIS WORK MAY NOT BE LENT.
"Donations of Works of Art in 1890." Annual Report of the Trustees of the Metropolitan Museum of Art no. 21 (1890), p. 478.
Henry G. Marquand. Letter to the trustees of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. April 17, 1890, lists a painting by Rubens among the works he offers to donate to the museum.
W. Bode. "Alte Kunstwerke in den Sammlungen der Vereinigten Staaten." Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst, n.s., 6, no. 1 (1895), p. 17, identifies it as a studio copy of the Munich picture.
Bulletin-Rubens 4 (1896), p. 206, as a studio copy.
Jan-Albert Goris and Julius S. Held. Rubens in America. New York, 1947, p. 49, no. A40, as a reduced copy of the Munich picture.
Paola Della Pergola. "P. P. Rubens e il tema della Susanna al bagno." Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique Bulletin 16 (1967), p. 9.
Mark Carter Leach. "Rubens' 'Susanna and the Elders' in Munich and Some Early Copies." Print Review no. 5 (Spring 1976), pp. 121–22, fig. 3.
Hans Vlieghe. Letter to Walter Liedtke. October 20, 1980, calls it a studio work.
Walter A. Liedtke. Flemish Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1984, vol. 1, pp. 213–16; vol. 2, pl. 81, as a variant of the Munich picture, most likely executed in Rubens's studio.
Didier Bodart. The Zanchi Collection. Rome, 1985, p. 91, under no. 30.
R[oger].-A. D'Hulst and M[arc]. Vandenven. Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard. part 3, Rubens: The Old Testament. London, 1989, p. 220, under no. 65, fig. 171, as an anonymous copy after Rubens.
Didier Bodart. Rubens e la pittura fiamminga del '600. Exh. cat., Cittadella dei Musei. Cagliari, 1990, p. 45, under no. 21.
Katharine Baetjer. European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art by Artists Born Before 1865: A Summary Catalogue. New York, 1995, p. 281, ill.
Colta Ives in Colta Ives and Susan Alyson Stein. The Lure of the Exotic: Gauguin in New York Collections. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2002, p. 8, fig. 11.
Konrad Renger and Claudia Denk. Flämische Malerei des Barock in der Alten Pinakothek. Munich, 2002, p. 294, under no. 317.
This is a variant of the larger panel by Rubens in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich, and, most likely, was executed in Rubens's studio. The center of the Munich picture has been painted over to include a view into the garden; the composition once featured Susanna's mantle, as does the present painting. There are a number of differences in the original compositions of the two pictures and Rubens may have made these considerable revisions in a lost drawing, in a preparatory drawing on this panel, or in another drawing.
For other versions of this subject after Rubens, see Liedtke 1984.
After Peter Paul Rubens (Flemish, Siegen 1577–1640 Antwerp)
17th century
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