Susannah and the Elders
Louis Jean François Lagrenée (Paris 1725 – Paris 1805)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
1771 (signed and dated)
Materials
Oil on copper
Measurements
413 x 311 mm (16 1/4 x 12 1/4 in)
Place of origin
Paris
Order this imageCollection
Stourhead, Wiltshire
NT 732290
Summary
Oil painting on copper, Susannah and the Elders by Louis-Jean-François Lagrenée, the elder (Paris 1725 – Paris 1805), signed and dated: L.Lagrenee 1771. This polished narrative painting depicts the story of Susannah and the Elders from the Book of Daniel in the Old Testament. Lagrenée captures the moment in the story when Susannah, wife of a prosperous Hebrew, is importuned by a pair of Elders while bathing. Adding perplexity to distress, they attempt to force a seduction, threatening to accuse her of adultery with a young man unless she succumbs. The picture was bought from the artist by Henry Hoare II for the sum of 720 French Livres under the title Chasteté de Suzanne.
Provenance
Commissioned by the Duc de Choiseul (1719 – 1785); bought from the artist by Henry Hoare II, thence by descent; given to the National Trust along with the house, its grounds, and the rest of contents by Sir Henry Hugh Arthur Hoare, 6th Bt (1865 – 1947) in 1946.
Credit line
Stourhead, The Hoare Collection (National Trust)
Makers and roles
Louis Jean François Lagrenée (Paris 1725 – Paris 1805), artist