Susanna in Gentileschi’s career

I believe all of you know very well the story of “Susanna and the elders”, it was very popular among the artists of 16th and 17th centuries, its popularity cab be explained by the fact that it is a biblical story, in which the public could find religious and moral values, and for the artists it gave the opportunity for an acceptable pretence for a titillating visual. In an older post, I compared this painting by Gentileschi to that made by other artists, male artists, on the same subject. And here my main objective is to see the evolution of this theme on Artemisia’s artistic career. Sometimes, an artist works on a subject more than just once, and this is exactly what happened to Susanna and Artemisia. I am not talking about what happens with Monet, who painted several paintings at the same time to capture the changes in light. Artemisia revisited “Susanna and the elders” six times throughout her life.

Since she developed this topic repeatedly, it holds an important place in her career. According to all the information we have about Artemisia, it was her earliest work (1610) and her last one (1652). Most of the art historians agree that her interest on this subject can be due her personal experiences, but we cannot help to notice that her first version was painted even before the rape.