Italian school; 17th century. "Susanna and the old men". Oil on canvas. Re-coloured. Measurements: 122 x 90 cm. We see in this painting the theme of Susanna in the bath, story narrated in the Old Testament, concretely in the Book of Daniel. It belongs to the Greek version of the Bible, known as the Septuagint, whose origin dates back to the 3rd century B.C. Susanna was a beautiful and chaste woman, wife of Joachim, a rich Jew in the Babylonian Exile. She is seen and desired by two elders who had been appointed judges among the Jews in exile; the two agree to surprise her alone and convince her to give herself to them. In the version most widely circulated in the art of the story, this occurs during the young woman's bath. Susanna, however, confronts the elders, telling them that she prefers death to sin. The men, seeing themselves rejected, accuse Susanna of adultery, and she is brought to trial, where they falsely testify against her. In view of the importance of her accusers, Susanna is condemned to death by stoning. On the way to her death, however, the prophet Daniel, then only a child, stops the popular procession and rebukes the people for acting without full knowledge of the cause, and calls for the two elders to be separated for intelligent questioning. The two false witnesses then contradict each other in their statements, and are condemned to death in Susanna's place. Formally, this is a composition in the Italian school, with two clearly differentiated parts in terms of composition, colour and light. In the foreground we see Susanna slightly covered with a cloth dominated by folds, a characteristic that evokes the Venus of Antiquity and her wet cloths. Behind the figure of Susanna we see the busts of the old men, shrouded in a kind of half-light, emerging from the shadows of the foliage, their faces caricatured and aged. Unlike other works on the same theme, here violence is avoided by depicting the moment before the attack, when Susana remains calm, unaware of the presence of the two men. Dimensions 122 x 90 cm.