Susannah and the Elders

The story comes from an addition to the Book of Daniel. Two elders spy on Susannah as she bathes and threaten to accuse her of adultery, a crime punishable by death, unless she gives in to them. Reni shows the moment they surprise her. One man tugs at her robe and puts a finger to his lips, the other reaches out a hand, and she clutches a yellow drapery to cover herself. Their skin is a ruddy orange, close to the colour of their robes, and hers a pale cream.

About ten years earlier Ludovico Carracci, the Bolognese painter who had trained the young Reni, painted the same subject, and the two pictures have much in common. In both, Susannah is on the right pulling her robe free, the men lean over a stone parapet on the left in red and orange, and the flesh tones are set against each other in the same way. For a long time this canvas was taken for the partner of Reni's Lot and his Daughters, also in London. Cleaning in 1984 showed brushwork of a later date, and the two were probably never meant as a pair.