San Diego Adds a Jusepe de Ribera
|Jusepe de Ribera, Susanna and the Elders, about 1615. San Diego Museum of Art|
The San Diego Museum of Art has acquired a large, early Susanna and the Elders by Jusepe de Ribera. Measuring about 70 by 54 inches, it was offered by Galeria Caylus, Madrid. The painting was featured in SDMA's 2019 show, "Art and Empire: The Golden Age of Spain."
Many of Ribera's early paintings went unrecognized prior to recent scholarship. Susanna's nude and the sinister faces of the elders parallel figures in other paintings now assigned to early Ribera. These works show the apex of Caravaggio's influence on the young artist.
This becomes the second Ribera painting in the SDMA collection. The first was itself acquired only in 2016. Though identified as St. James the Lesser at the time of its purchase, it's now believed to be an unconventional (no-knife) depiction of Saint Bartholomew.