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This piece is a reimagined scene from the Old Testament, in which two elders of Babylon are caught spying on a woman, Susanna, while she is bathing. The two lustful voyeurs threatened to accuse her of adultery if she declined their sexual advances. Susanna tearfully refused, though nobody would believe her over the elders because of their societal status and age. The elders would later be tried for bearing false witness, but the humiliation Susanna faced was a scene that many painters challenged themselves to capture.
This story has been painted numerous times since the 15th century, but Moessel’s depiction is rather different from other famous creations. Master painters like Artemisia Gentillischi and Rembrandt painted Susanna attempting to conceal herself with pleading eyes once accosted by the men. However, Moessel paints Susanna in a much different light. Instead of being embarrassed, she is unbothered—making no attempt to cover herself—likely not yet noticing the men behind her.
This painting shows the foundational painting skills that were taught to Moessel at the Munich Academy. His mastery of light and proportion, as well as his skill for ornate tilework designs are on full display here—a nod to his classical training, as well as his previous career as an architectural painter.Label Type
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Julius Moessel was born in 1871 in Fürth, located in the Bavaria region of Germany. He went on to study at the Munich Academy and, by the 1900s, cemented himself as one of the most venerated architectural painters and muralists in Germany. His detailed, ornamental work, including intricate scrollwork frescoes and botanical decoration, was in demand by leading German architects. Perhaps most famously, he was commissioned to paint the jury room of the Nuremberg Palace of Justice, where many of the World War II war crime trials later took place.
Once at the precipice of wealth, prosperity, and high regard in his field, World War I left Moessel desperate for work as Germany's economy deteriorated, greatly impacting his commissions, career, and prestige. When he could no longer support himself, let alone maintain his comfortable lifestyle, he moved to Chicago where he began a new career as an easel painter. Despite his emigré status, he quickly rose to acclaim again, exhibiting in sixty exhibitions in New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Michigan. As his reputation for being the idiosyncratic character of the Chicago art scene grew, Moessel continued to break free of the constraints that tethered him to architectural painting— instead, he would shock contemporaries and critics with the pluralist nature of his work.
Moessel painted a wide array of subjects ranging from horrific Boschian scenes of Hell and suffering, to botanical paintings of animals peacefully interacting, to Surreal or Symbolist works of politics and religion. Despite the extremity and incongruity of his work, it captivated one of Chicago's most esteemed art critics, C.J. Bulliet, who wrote for the Daily News and Art Digest. Bulliet was adamant in his endearment to Moessel’s work, writing that “Max Ernst and Salvador Dalí might sit profitably at his feet for a few hours to learn the secret of the awe and wonder” Moessel so easily evoked in viewers of his work. Bulliet even went so far as to dub him “one of the living masters of the world.”
Even during periods of popularity, Moessel rarely sold his paintings. As such, hundreds of his works sat collecting dust in his studio instead of being safely housed in museums, galleries, and private collections. Being a confrontational and callous man with divisive opinions and a fiery temperament, he would often dissolve relationships with curators and patrons and shirk opportunities that could have potentially brought him the success he knew in Germany. With dwindling business relationships and publicity, Moessel descended into anonymity and died in poverty, largely forgotten, even in the historical archives and memories of Chicago and Fürth, where his reputation would not adhere itself to history.