Art postcard Jean-Jacques Henner, Suzanne au Bain, Musée du Luxembourg Paris

Sepia art postcard with a photographic reproduction of "La Chaste Suzanne" by Jean-Jacques Henner, the work then known as "Suzanne au Bain", published by LL (Lévy et Neurdein Réunis) in Paris as number 155. The reproduction shows Susanna in three-quarter back view, standing and leaning on a low wall with her right foot in the water. Her clothes lie in white folds on a stone bench to the left, a dark drape to the right. In the foreground flowers float on the water; in the upper right corner a wooded park with a landscape beyond emerges. The printed caption "HENNER - Suzanne au Bain" and "155 LL." together with "MUSÉE DU LUXEMBOURG, PARIS" appears at the bottom. The card is in good condition, with slight discolouration on the upper edge.

The original is an oil painting on canvas measuring 185 by 130 centimetres, painted by Jean-Jacques Henner in 1864 as his final required submission from Rome during his residency as a pensionnaire at the Villa Médicis. The work was shown at the Salon of 1865 and bought by the French State for six thousand francs. It hung at the Musée du Luxembourg in Paris from 1867 to 1929, was transferred to the Louvre in 1929, and has been housed at the Musée d'Orsay since 1978. The subject comes from the Book of Daniel: Susanna is observed during her bath by two elders, whose faces are barely discernible in the vegetation in the upper left. The reference to the "Musée du Luxembourg" on this card dates the edition to between about 1900 and 1929, in the heyday of the Parisian art reproduction postcard.