Artemisia Gentileschi in Denmark: Nivaagaard Acquires Susanna and the Elders

Published on 21 September 2025

The Nivaagaard Collection in Denmark has just announced the acquisition of Susanna and the Elders by Artemisia Gentileschi, a painting datable to the years 1644–1648 and one of the most resonant versions of a subject that accompanied the artist throughout her career.

Artemisia Gentileschi, Susanna and the Old Men (1644-1648; oil on canvas, 200 x 150 cm). Photo Nicholas Hall, Nivaagaard Collection

This extraordinary addition situates a rural Danish museum at the centre of international attention, for it not only introduces Gentileschi into the country’s public collections for the first time but also signals a decisive curatorial commitment: to rewrite the balance of representation by bringing women artists into the heart of the canonical narratives. The painting, secured from a private collection after a competitive process in which several European institutions expressed interest, now enters a gallery whose identity has long rested on Old Masters from the Italian Renaissance, the Dutch Golden Age and nineteenth-century Danish painting, and its arrival expands those fields with a voice that had until recently remained marginalised in both scholarship and museum displays. Artemisia Gentileschi’s Susanna depicts the biblical heroine at the moment of harassment by two elders as she prepares to bathe, a story frequently treated by male painters who emphasised the sensuality of the figure. Gentileschi, however, transformed the subject into a scene of psychological confrontation, her Susanna recoiling in unease and asserting an agency denied in earlier traditions. The Nivaagaard canvas reveals this with particular clarity: the sitter is not a passive object of desire but a woman caught in tension, her body turned in resistance, her face marked by the discomfort of intrusion. It is this subtle modulation, the ability to infuse a familiar theme with the weight of lived experience, that makes Gentileschi one of the most compelling painters of the seventeenth century. The acquisition also reflects a broader cultural shift. For decades Artemisia was remembered primarily through the prism of her biography, her assault at the hands of Agostino Tassi and the subsequent trial, her image framed by tragedy more than by artistic achievement. Today that narrative has been rebalanced: exhibitions, new attributions and major acquisitions have restored her place as a painter of rare force and originality, equal in stature to her male contemporaries and capable of sustaining new readings for the present. The arrival of Susanna and the Elders in Denmark adds to this momentum and confirms the vitality of a rediscovery that shows no signs of abating. For the Nivaagaard Collection the painting embodies the museum’s ambition to give female artists visibility within each of its principal areas of focus, thus ensuring that the history it tells is neither partial nor exclusively male. Few museums of comparable scale can claim to hold four works by women active before the eighteenth century, a fact that situates Nivaagaard ahead of much larger institutions in the pursuit of balance and historical justice. This achievement owes much to the vision of its director Andrea Rygg Karberg, who has systematically sought to recalibrate the museum’s holdings since her appointment in 2017, ensuring that new acquisitions are not trophies for prestige but agents of change in the narrative of art history. The painting itself will now be studied alongside Artemisia’s other treatments of Susanna, from her early works in Rome to later versions executed in Florence, Venice and Naples, allowing scholars to trace the evolution of her style and her persistent engagement with themes of female subjectivity under pressure. The Nivaagaard canvas, executed when the artist was in her fifties and at the height of her powers, distils her mature language: clarity of gesture, economy of ornament, a psychological depth conveyed not by melodrama but by restraint. It is precisely this sobriety that makes the painting resonate with modern sensibilities and explains why Gentileschi has emerged as a figure of such relevance in the twenty-first century. For Denmark, the acquisition brings a new dimension to its cultural patrimony; for Europe more broadly, it is a reminder that decisive interventions can come from unexpected places. A museum outside Copenhagen, in a rural setting, has secured a masterpiece that will enrich scholarship, draw international visitors and, above all, affirm the presence of a woman whose legacy was long obscured. The resonance is also personal for us at ARTLO Magazine, for in our November 2024 to January 2025 issue we devoted a full special feature to Artemisia Gentileschi, exploring her artistic trajectory, the complexity of her themes and the renewed attention that her oeuvre commands today. To witness the arrival of Susanna and the Elders at Nivaagaard less than a year later feels like a continuation of that story, proof that the narrative of Artemisia is still unfolding and that each rediscovery or acquisition adds a new layer to the understanding of her contribution. The painting is more than an addition to a collection; it is a symbol of how museums can shape the canon, how curators can act with vision, and how art history continues to be written not only in the halls of great capitals but also in the dedication of smaller institutions that dare to think expansively.