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Susannah and the Elders Statue

This beautiful sculpture was created in 1874 by Giovanni Battista Lombardi in Rome. It depicts the biblical story of Susannah and the Elders which appears in the Old Testament book of Daniel in the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches.

White marble statue showing the biblical story of Susannah and the Elders by Giovanni Battista Lombardi.

Susannah and the Elders by Giovanni Battista Lombardi (1823–1880), held in the Cultural Services, Hartlepool Borough Council collection.

This beautiful sculpture was created in 1874 by Giovanni Battista Lombardi in Rome. It depicts the biblical story of Susannah and the Elders which appears in the Old Testament in the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches. Susannah is a Jewish wife in Babylon where she is secretly watched by two trusted and powerful elders as she bathes in her garden. The two men jump out at her and try to blackmail her by saying that they will tell her husband she has cheated on him if she doesn’t sleep with them.

Close up of Susannah after the two elders interrupt her bathing. Image courtesy of Cultural Services, Hartlepool Borough Council.

Susannah refuses to be blackmailed and so the Elders tell her husband she has been unfaithful.As was the practice at the time Susannah was sentenced to death

However, the biblical hero Daniel steps in and asks to question the Elders thoroughly. So separately they are questioned and its clear their stories of how Susannah met her supposed lover are different. They therefore are proved to be lying and Susannah was saved and instead the Elders are put to death.

The story of Susannah and the Elders has been a source of inspiration for artists for centuries and the moment of Susannah being interrupted while she bathes is the most depicted part of the story. Lombardi has captured Susannah in this very vulnerable pose and was a master of the precise detail he carved into every sculpture.

Close up of the base of Susannah and the Elders statue. Cultural Services, Hartlepool Borough Council.

Giovanni Battista Lombardi

Giovanni Battista Lombardi was born in Brescia, Italy in 1823 and spent his apprenticeship in his father’s stone quarry. By the 1850’s Lombardi moved to Rome to study under some of the best sculptors of the time and produced many classical pieces that where popular at the time. He later established his own studio in Rome and produced sculptures for Italian royalty and aristocrats.

Today his sculptures can be found in some of the best know museums and art gallery’s all over the world, including three here in the Tees Valley. Susannah and the Elders and Innocence are on display in Hartlepool Art Gallery and The Pharaohs Daughter stands at the entrance of the maternity wing at Darlington Memorial Hospital where it has stood watch over the towns children for over 100 years.

photograph of a man in a three piece suite leaning on a side table with his hat and cane in his other hand.

Giovanni Battista Lombardi (1823 - 1880).

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Susannah and the Elders Statue

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