Vincent Sellaer

Anonymous sale, New York, Sotheby's, 11 June 1981, lot 214;

Where acquired by the present collector.

This sixteenth-century panel depicting Susanna and the Elders is attributed to Vincent Sellaer, a Flemish painter active in Malines, a city that became the cultural center of Flanders during the reign of Margaret of Austria (1480-1530). Known for his depictions of biblical women and mythological scenes, Sellaer and his workshop produced several versions and variants of this composition. The popular religious subject derives from an Old Testament episode in which Susanna, in a triumph of virtue over evil, rejects the advances of two older men who sought to test her marital fidelity.