(Milan 1609–1662)
Susanna,
oil on canvas, 111 x 95 cm, unframed

Provenance:
Private European Collection

We are grateful to Filippo Maria Ferro for suggesting the attribution of the present painting on the basis of a photograph and for his help in cataloguing this lot.

The present painting, which may have been reduced, depicts the Biblical episode of Susanna and the Elders, focusing on the female protagonist. The position of Susanna is similar to that adopted in another painting, recently attributed to Carlo Francesco Nuvolone (F. M. Ferro, Nuvolone: una famiglia di pittori nella Milano del ‘600, Soncino 2003, p. 181, 338, fig. 20A). Both paintings refer to Nuvolone’s sketch of Joseph and Putiphar’s wife in the Deliss Collection, London (F. M. Ferro, Carlo Francesco Nuvolone e le ‘seduzioni’ della pittura, in: D. Cassinelli et. al. (eds.), Nuvolone tra sacro e profano al Sacro Monte sopra Varese, exhibition catalogue, Varese 2012, pp. 24–35).

Throughout his artistic production Nuvolone returned to the subject of Susanna, analysing the theme’s ambivalence between sensuality and voyeurism. The present work stylistically refers to the artist’s early production, around 1635.