Susanna and The Elders

Sotheby's likely had no idea what it was setting in motion when it chose to plaster the front of their gallery in New York City with a reproduction of Pompeo Gerolamo Batoni's take on the oft-painted and ever popular Bible story about Susanna and the Elders. The marketing poobahs probably thought that this was nothing more than the usual eye-catching promotion intended to let the deeper pockets passing in their sedans know what was coming up for auction soon.

They were probably simply pleased that the old fellow's work still fetched the big bucks.

Because said poobahs and the assorted deep pockets who might be tempted to bid on this painting seldom actually walk past the enormously expensive bit of advertising out there on York Avenue, they wouldn't have experienced what at least two passers-by did.

Here is their experience. You'll have to accept their word as the auction occurred in 2013.

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Susanna’s expression doesn’t change when she becomes aware of the noise and rushing bodies within arm’s reach. Her outstretched hand doesn’t touch any of the passersby but she desperately needs someone to stop and help. She wonders if the dirty old man leering down at her realizes he is being watched, judged even.

It had started suddenly; she was prepared to swear it was when the man, the kind-looking one on the outside not that filthy fiend holding out his dirty bag of money, the one with the white hair put his head next to hers and gazed down gently. In some dim and poorly understood past there had been a far more intense gaze, a focus that seared past her as a wronged person and instead took her in as a gauntlet thrown down at the feet of long-dead Masters who nodded and went back to their espressos.

As time went by, however, more and more of those Old Masters took up the challenge ensuring that dozens of versions of Susanna's tribulations adorn countless museum walls.

And, yet, only this reproduction of old Batoni's version seems to have slipped from art to life.

Another head, with white hair as well no less, but smaller and female, pauses and looks up without fear or revulsion into the dark hunger of that miserable old liar frozen and peering over Susanna’s shoulder. Can’t he now hear the chaos right in front of them? If so, he hides his confusion well. Susanna keeps her long-held look of terror in place, easy to do after two hundred and sixty-three years.

Wait.

A crack appears and she watches his eyes swivel in disbelief. He wants to snatch back his bag of coins, but he too is held in place by hundreds of years of peripheral glances and unexamined expectations. He isn’t going anywhere. The cleaving sword of Judgment holds steady and for another five hundred, nine hundred, thirty thousand years he and his foul brother can only know this inescapable fate without ever having tasted Susanna’s sweet flesh.

© Remington Write 2023. All Rights Reserved.

How it went down:

Fair Susanna was falsely accused of promiscuity by two lustful elders. When she made her way back to her house, they accosted her, threatening to claim that she was meeting a young man in the garden unless she agrees to have sex with them.

She refuses to be blackmailed and is arrested and about to be put to death for promiscuity when the young Daniel interrupts the proceedings, shouting that the elders should be questioned to prevent the death of an innocent.

The number of times this scenario has been painted over the centuries is truly breath-taking, making it a natural for this short embellishment.