Susanna and the Elders 

Giulio Cesare Procaccini painted "Susanna and the Elders" at some point in his career in Northern Italy in the late 16th or early 17th century. This work depicts a story from the Book of Daniel, in which Susanna is spied on by two elders while bathing. Procaccini’s image shows the moment when the elders accost Susanna, who raises her arms in a gesture of alarm. The story of Susanna was a popular subject for artists in the 16th and 17th centuries, not least because it gave them an excuse to paint the female nude. But while Susanna's virtue is upheld in the biblical story, paintings such as this one risk titillating the viewer through their depiction of the scene. The male gaze is thus built into the painting itself. To understand the image more fully, we could research the religious, social and political context in which Procaccini was working, examining the place of women and the ways in which they were represented in art and literature at the time.