Laocoon2.0003_VanMieris

Wikipedia Commons (hi res)
Ver. Aen. 2.40-56, 190-240
Apollodorus Libr. E. 5.17-18

Willem Van Mieris, "Suzanna Belaagd door de Ouderlingern" (1731), Perpignan, Musée Hyacinthe Rigaud, inv. D 57-6-1.

The story of Susannah and the Elders occurs in the Biblical Apocrypha, Susanna, in which Daniel passes righteous judgment.

The painting is perhaps best known for its evocative appearance (click) in Hitchcock's Psycho, where it hangs on the wall of the parlour in the Bates Motel.

For the identification of W. Van Mieris' painting, see B. Stelzner-Large, "Zur Bedeutung der Bilder in Alfred Hitchcocks Psycho," in Kunst und Künstler in Film (Hameln: Niemeyer 1992), 121 -33.

For connection to Laocoon, see Macfarlane's forthcoming article: "Other Pictures of Great Significance in Psycho: a classical mythological retrospective."

OGCMA slides are designed by Roger T. Macfarlane for use in Classical Civilization 241 courses at Brigham Young University.
The present resource contains information assembled for The Oxford Guide to Classical Mythology in the Arts, 1300 - 1990's, edited by J. Davidson Reid (Oxford 1994), and it is used with express permission from Oxford University press.
Address concerns or inquiries to macfarlane@byu.edu.