Object number1994.10.1

Susanna and the Elders

Datec. 1635

Artist Christoffel Jegher (Flemish, 1596 - 1652/53)

after Peter Paul Rubens (Flemish, 1577-1640)

CultureFlemish

MediumWoodcut on paper

DimensionsImage: 17 5/16 × 22 7/16 in. (44 × 57 cm)
Sheet: 17 5/16 × 22 13/16 in. (44 × 58 cm)
Matted: 24 × 30 in. (61 × 76.2 cm)

Credit LinePurchase, Francis Woolsey and Helen Silkman Bronson, class of 1924, Fund

On View

Not on view

Period17th c

Classification(s)

SignedSigned (at bottom center edge): Christoffel Jegher Sc

InscribedInscribed (at bottom left center edge): P P Rubidelim O2 exc C V M PRIVILEGIIS; (verso): LeBelI S.C. 11963

Catalogue raisonnéHollstein 1

Vassar Exhibitions

An Era of Opportunity: Three Decades of Acquisitions

DescriptionThis woodcut demonstrates a collaboration between the skillful printmaker Jegher and the pre-eminent painter of the seventeenth century in northern Europe, Peter Paul Rubens. Their collaboration arose through Rubens’s work with the Plantin Press in Antwerp, where Jegher was employed as a wood- cut designer for the press’s books. The subject of Susanna spied on by the two elders comes from the apocryphal Book of Daniel. When she refuses their advances, they slander her. It was a theme used in art throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as a moral cautionary tale about the evil of bearing false witness. However, in painting, it also provided an opportunity to present a blatantly sexual theme featuring a lovely female nude to an audience who become as involved in the voyeurism as the elders themselves. This print is one of nine woodcuts made by Jegher after Rubens’s designs and carries an inscription that states that Rubens obtained a ‘privilege’ for this design, an early form of copyright meant to discourage copyists.

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email loebcollections@vassar.edu