In late 2024 I visited a local art school wanting to join a bronze casting or lino cutting class to learn a new skill and was disappointed that I could only get a spot in a Oil painting class. But this class challenged me beyond words. I learnt so much from the class and although our subjects were the down trodden women of the renaissance and Baroque period I tool solace in focussing on reproducing work from one of the only solo female artists of the time.

‍Susanna and the Elders is a 1610 painting by the Italian Baroque artist Artemisia Gentileschi and is her earliest-known signed and dated work.^[1] Artemisia painted several variations of the scene in her career.^[2] Thie orgoinal of this one hangs at Schloss Weißenstein in Pommersfelden, Germany.^[3] The work shows a frightened Susanna accosted by two men (shown above her) while she is bathing. This was a popular scene to paint during the Baroque period.^[3] The subject comes from the deuterocanonicalBook of Susanna in the Additions to Daniel.