Antonio Bellucci

(Pieve di Soligo, 1654 - Pieve di Soligo, 1726)

Attributed to

The work, an elegant oil on canvas, depicts a subject that was remarkably popular in 17th-century Italian art. The figurative success of the biblical episode of Susanna and the Elders is easily explained by the prevailing Baroque taste, which, over the composure of classical exponents, always favored a dramatic and dynamic figuration capable of engaging the viewer through contrasts with a strong emotional impact (as, in this case, through a veiled eroticism). The center of the composition, moreover, is illuminated here by Susanna's diaphanous skin. Surprised by the old judges while bathing, she immediately attempts to cover herself to escape their threats. The contrast, therefore, is played out entirely between the vital youth of the woman's body and the deep wrinkles of the two elders, translating into a moral contrast between the moral exemplarity of the former and the perversion of the two wise men.

As regards the authorship of the work, the general pictorial rendering and the lively chromatic taste can only place the painting in the Venetian context of the second half of the seventeenth century. This is possible thanks to the comparison with further stylistic parameters such as the characteristic large eyes and the facial features of Susanna and the judge on the left (in this sense, compare this painting with the Adam and Eve preserved in the photographic archive of the F. Zeri Foundation of the University of Bologna), attributing the work to Antonio Bellucci (1654 –1726), an important painter from Pieve who was active in Venice, Vienna and London.