{"meta":{"version":"2.1","_links":{"self":{"href":"https://api.vam.ac.uk/v2/object/O158218"},"collection_page":{"href":"https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O158218/"}},"images":{"_primary_thumbnail":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2009BY6474/full/!100,100/0/default.jpg","_iiif_image":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2009BY6474/","_alt_iiif_image":[],"imageResolution":"high","_images_meta":[{"assetRef":"2009BY6474","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2009BY6486","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false}]},"see_also":{"_iiif_pres":"https://iiif.vam.ac.uk/collections/O158218/manifest.json","_alt_iiif_pres":[]}},"record":{"systemNumber":"O158218","accessionNumber":"E.529-2008","objectType":"Manuscript cutting","titles":[{"title":"Susannah and the Elders","type":"generic title"}],"summaryDescription":"The Spanish Forger was a skilful and prolific forger, who capitalised on the fashion for collecting medieval panel paintings and illuminated manuscripts, which was widespread in Europe and the United States between the mid-nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries. His distinctive repertory of sweet faced figures set against a background of steep hills and castles derived from the study of illustrated books on the Middle Ages. His work was exposed as that of a forger in the 1930s, on the basis of a panel formerly attributed to the fifteenth century Spanish painter Jorge Inglés. This association provided the name of convenience by which he is still known, although it is generally believed that he was active in Paris in the late 19th century and early 20th century. \r\n\r\nThis is one of a group of five or six miniatures of similar size and borders, painted on the back of cuttings from a text page of an Italian choir book of fifteenth or sixteenth century date. It depicts Susannah and the Elders; a biblical subject taken from the Apocrypha (Susannah 15-24). Susannah is shown interrupted while bathing at the left. Her virtuous and modest nature is conveyed by her downcast eyes and the gesture with which she covers her body with a cloth as the two elders approach from the right. They threatened to accuse Susannah of adultery unless she slept with them. The costume of the two elders and the castellated landscape are reminiscent of Franco-Flemish manuscripts of around 1400, but the 'Venus Pudica' pose of Susannah suggests a more classicising source, such as Botticelli's Birth of Venus, painted in Florence during the 1470s. This anachronistic tendency to combine motifs derived from different schools and periods is a principal reason why the works of the Spanish Forger are readily identifiable as fakes.","physicalDescription":"Miniature painted ca.1900 in France on a piece of parchment cut from a 14th- or 15th- century Italian antiphonary (a type of choir book).  ","artistMakerPerson":[{"name":{"text":"Spanish Forger","id":"A22662"},"association":{"text":"attributed to","id":"THES286691"},"note":""}],"artistMakerOrganisations":[],"artistMakerPeople":[],"materials":[{"text":"parchment","id":"AAT11851"},{"text":"pigments","id":"x33204"},{"text":"Gold","id":"AAT11021"}],"techniques":[{"text":"illumination","id":"AAT220539"},{"text":"writing","id":"AAT54698"}],"materialsAndTechniques":"","categories":[{"text":"Manuscripts","id":"THES48922"},{"text":"Manuscript cutting","id":"THES275182"},{"text":"Fakes & forgeries","id":"THES48958"}],"styles":[],"collectionCode":{"text":"PDP","id":"THES48595"},"images":["2009BY6474","2009BY6486"],"imageResolution":"high","galleryLocations":[{"current":{"text":"LVLE","id":"THES49657"},"free":"","case":"I","shelf":"81","box":"E"}],"partTypes":[[{"text":"manuscript cutting","id":""}]],"contentWarnings":[{"apprise":"No","note":""}],"placesOfOrigin":[{"place":{"text":"Paris","id":"x29068"},"association":{"text":"illuminated","id":"AAT220539"},"note":"probably"},{"place":{"text":"Italy","id":"x28927"},"association":{"text":"written","id":"x34827"},"note":"Original manuscript the cutting came from"}],"productionDates":[{"date":{"text":"ca. 1900","earliest":"1895-01-01","latest":"1904-12-31"},"association":{"text":"illuminated","id":"AAT220539"},"note":""},{"date":{"text":"14th century-15th century","earliest":"1300-01-01","latest":"1499-12-31"},"association":{"text":"written","id":"x34827"},"note":"Original manuscript the cutting came from"}],"associatedObjects":[{"object":{"text":"E.528-2008","id":"O158217"},"association":""},{"object":{"text":"E.527-2008","id":"O158165"},"association":""},{"object":{"text":"E.530-2008","id":"O158219"},"association":""},{"object":{"text":"E.531-2008","id":"O158220"},"association":""}],"creditLine":"Accepted by HM Government in lieu of Inheritance Tax and allocated to the Victoria and Albert Museum, 2008","dimensions":[{"dimension":"Height","value":"20.5","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"painting","note":""},{"dimension":"Width","value":"14.5","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"painting","note":""}],"dimensionsNote":"","marksAndInscriptions":[],"objectHistory":"Part of a group of five miniatures sharing the same provenance (E.527-2008 to E.531-2008) and acquired at the same time. All miniatures were painted on cuttings from the same 14th or 15th-century Italian antiphonary. \nCollection of Mr. Brown (d. ca.1925), Switzerland; inherited by his wife; bequeathed to Maria Teweles, Twentynine Palms, California; Mr Kerrison Preston, Surrey, England; collection of Jean F. Preston, Princeton (in 1978). \r\nAccepted by HM Government in lieu of Inheritance Tax and allocated to the Victoria and Albert Museum in 2008.\r\nOther miniatures from the same series in other collections: formerly Hartman Galleries, Ltd, Beverly Hills (Rebecca at the well; see The Spanish Forger, 1978, no. L10, fig. 189). ","historicalContext":"","briefDescription":"Miniature of Susannah and the Elders, painted on a manuscript cutting from a medieval Italian antiphonary, attributed to the 'Spanish Forger', Paris (?), ca. 1900.","bibliographicReferences":[{"reference":{"text":"Voelkle, W., The Spanish Forger, The Pierpont Morgan Library, New York, 1978.","id":"AUTH361168"},"details":"no. L 65, fig. 184.","free":""},{"reference":{"text":"Burgio, L., Clark, R.J.H. and Hark, R.R., 'Spectroscopic investigation of modern pigments on purportedly medieval miniatures by the ‘Spanish Forger', in Journal of Raman Spectroscopy, vol 40 (2009).","id":"AUTH361169"},"details":"pp. 2031-2036.","free":""}],"production":"","productionType":{"text":"Unique","id":"THES48864"},"contentDescription":"","contentPlaces":[],"associatedPlaces":[],"contentPerson":[],"associatedPerson":[],"contentOrganisations":[],"associatedOrganisations":[],"contentPeople":[],"associatedPeople":[],"contentEvents":[],"associatedEvents":[],"contentOthers":[],"contentConcepts":[],"contentLiteraryRefs":[],"galleryLabels":[],"partNumbers":["E.529-2008"],"accessionNumberNum":"529","accessionNumberPrefix":"E","accessionYear":2008,"otherNumbers":[],"copyNumber":"","aspects":["WHOLE"],"assets":[],"recordModificationDate":"2025-04-23","recordCreationDate":"2008-06-27","availableToBook":false}}