This panel painting is currently housed in Gemaldegalerie in Berlin and concerns the Biblical story of Susanna. It is believed the canvas was sold by Rembrandt for 500 guilders in 1647 to the merchant Adriaen Banck and that later in the eighteenth century the painting was owned by Sir Joshua Reynolds, the influential English painter and first president of the Royal Academy.
According to the Biblical story, two Jewish Elders hid themselves in a garden and watched Susanna bathing. They threatened her that they would publicly accuse her of committing adultery with a young man unless she gave herself to them. Rembrandt conveys the emotional turmoil experienced by Susanna, as she attempts to cover her nakedness. In the story, she is eventually exonerated by the wise judge Daniel and the wicked Elders are punished. Unlike in previous Baroque works of art, where Rembrandt would fall back on grand expressions of emotion to convey narrative, the artist relies on the realistic portrayal of emotion and his design of posture to capture the sense of Susana’s vulnerability to faithfully narrate the tale.
In preparation for the canvas, Rembrandt made numerous drawings of Susanna and at least one preliminary painting. X-rays on the Berlin canvas have revealed that the painting consists of several layers, the earliest showing signs of a rough composition characteristic of Rembrandt’s style of the 1630’s. When the artist re-painted the picture in 1647, he revised the design, changing the structure for a calmer effect, being particularly influenced by a painting of the same subject by Pieter Lastman (1583–1633), which he copied in a drawing.