Painting - Susanna and the Elders

I bought this 18th Century Italian painting (author unattributed but of an Italian school) in Poland in 1988 and it has been playing hide and seek with me ever since. Meaning sometimes I see it and sometimes I don't! Whenever I live overseas I hang it up and when I am home in Malaysia it stays in storage, out of deference for my visiting relatives and friends who might be sensitive to Susanna's lack of covering. But also because I do not have enough wall to hang such a big picture.

The painting is a popular image in sixteenth-eighteenth-century art based on the Old Testament story of Susanna and the Elders. It is based on a a passage from the 13th chapter of the book of Daniel. As the story goes, a fair Hebrew wife is falsely accused by lecherous voyeurs. As she bathes in her garden, having sent her attendants away, two lusty elders secretly observe the lovely Susanna. When she makes her way back to her house, they accost her, threatening to claim that she was meeting a young man in the garden unless she agrees to make love to them.

She refuses to be blackmailed, and is arrested and about to be put to death for promiscuity when a young man named Daniel interrupts the proceedings. After separating the two men, they are questioned about details (cross-examination) of what they saw, but disagree about the tree under which Susanna supposedly met her lover. The great difference in size between a mastic and an oak makes the elders' lie plain to all the observers. The false accusers are put to death, and virtue triumphs.

I bought the painting as a future investment, and had paid quite a chunk for it even then. When I was in Australia in 1995 I had Sotheby in Sydney value and authenticate it. They subsequently offered to auction it for me. I was not too happy with the estimate base price they put on it and I was not in need of money then so I declined the offer.

The painting had travelled the globe, from Poland to Malaysia, then Australia, back to Malaysia, then to Peru, back to Malaysia and now back in Europe again where it originated from. Susanna has been laying wrapped, unappreciated and untended to rather too long. I had not opened it since I left Peru in 2002. I think perhaps it's about time someone else own and appreciate it....

11-11-2009 - Susanna was successfully auctioned off today at 70% of the highest estimate price, and five times the original price I paid for. I was hoping for more but in today's financial situation I should be happy with what I got. Out of deference of it new owners I have removed Susanna's pictures from this posting!