Details

Object type

tapestry panel; cushion cover

Title

Susanna on her Way to the Baths

Place Associated

England, London (possibly) (place of manufacture)

Date

circa 1625 or later

Materials

wool (warps), wool (wefts), silk (wefts), 9-10 warp threads per cm, 3 ply S Z

Dimensions

overall: 510 mm x 520 mm

Description

Tapestry or tapestry cushion cover, part of a set of six depicting the Story of Susanna and the Elders (with 47.10-47.14), woven in wool and silk wefts and wool warps depicting Susanna on Her Way to the Baths. Susanna, accompanied by two maids, talks to the baths. Set within an arcade with trees and flowers. Border with women carrying baskets and urns of fruit and flowers on sides and two hunters, each with two dogs, pursuing a stag at top and fox at bottom.

Elizabeth Cleland states that: 'In glorious colour, with lurid details cheek-by-jowl with charming flowering strawberry bushes and pea pods, the Story of Susanna and the Elders is related across a series of six designs. The tale, familiar from the Bible’s Old Testament (Daniel, 13:1–64) but, interestingly enough, excluded from the Hebrew Bible and from most Protestant versions, covers the provocative and potentially subversive themes of beauty, temptation, abuse of power, false accusation, rescue, compelling rhetoric and, finally, graphic and bloody execution. The dimensions and square proportions reveal that the panels were made as cushion covers. The surviving record implies that Old Testament narratives held particular appeal for cushion sets, from the stories of Abraham (47.15 and 47.16) and Tobias (private collection) to Jacob (Victoria and Albert Museum, London), but Susanna seems to have been perhaps the most popular of this type. At least five editions of this Susanna series were woven. The Burrell’s holdings of this story include the only known complete set of six, which allows us to follow the story scene-by-scene. [...] In general compositional terms, all six Susanna scenes echo those probably first developed by the Flemish master Gillis Coignet, which Hans Collaert the Elder adapted for the popular printed Thesaurus Sacrarum published by Gerard de Jode in Antwerp in the 1580s. However, the simplifications in pose and gesture are such that either this source is a few steps removed from the Susanna cartoons, or the designer of the Susanna cartoons used the Thesaurus as a guide and inspiration, but not more.' (Cleland, E. and Karafel, L., (2017). Glasgow Museums: Tapestries from The Burrell Collection, 649, 652).

Provenance: JM Botibol, London; from whom purchased by Sir William Burrell, 23 September 1936, for £1,000.

Credit Line/Donor

Gifted by Sir William and Lady Burrell to the City of Glasgow, 1944

Collection

Burrell Collection: European Tapestries

ID Number

47.9

Location

In storage