Samson and Delilah

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Samson and Delilah: Peter Paul Rubens

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Peter Paul Rubens Oil Painting - Samson and Delilah

Keywords: Samson, Delilah

Work Overview: Samson and Delilah
Artist Peter Paul Rubens
Year c. 1609–10
Type Oil on wood
Dimensions 185 cm × 205 cm (73 in × 81 in)
Location National Gallery (London)

Samson and Delilah is a painting by the Flemish Baroque painter Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640) which is currently on display in the National Gallery. It dates from about 1609 to 1610. Two preliminary copies of the painting also exist today: an ink and wash drawing on paper, and an oil sketch on wood panel. The oil sketch is currently on display in the Cincinnati Art Museum, while the ink sketch is being held in a private collection in Amsterdam.

The painting depicts an episode from the Old Testament story of Samson and Delilah (Judges 16). Samson was a Hebrew hero known for fighting the Philistines. Having fallen in love with Delilah, who has been bribed by the Philistines, Samson tells her the secret of his great strength: his uncut hair. Without his strength, Samson is captured by the Philistines.

Rubens portrays the moment when, having fallen asleep on Delilah's lap, a young man cuts Samson's hair. Samson and Delilah are in a dark room, which is lit mostly by a candle held by an old woman to Delilah's left. Delilah is depicted with all of her clothes, but with her breasts exposed. Her left hand is on top of Samson's right shoulder, as his left arm is draped over her legs. The man snipping Samson's hair is crossing his hands, which is a sign of betrayal. Philistine soldiers can be seen in the right-hand background of the painting.[1]

The niche behind Delilah contains a statue of the Venus, the Goddess of love, and her son, Cupid. Notably, Cupid's mouth is bound, rather than his eyes. This statue can be taken to represent the cause of Samson's fate and the tool of Delilah's actions.

The old woman standing behind Delilah, providing further light for the scene, does not appear in the biblical narrative of Samson and Delilah. She is believed to be a procuress, and the adjacent profiles of her and Delilah may symbolise the old woman's past, and Delilah's future.

The painting was originally commissioned by Nicolaas II Rockox, Lord mayor of Antwerp, Belgium, for his Rockox House. In addition to being a patron, Rockox was a close personal friend of Rubens. The painting was specifically intended to be placed above a 7-foot mantleshelf, where the painting would have been seen from below.[2]

The painting was publicly sold for charity when Rockox died in 1640, but it is unknown who the painting was sold to. In 1700, a panel named Samson and Delilah was bought by Prince Johann Adams Andreas I. This painting was likely Rubens' painting. However, when the painting was part of the Liechtenstein Collection in Vienna, Austria in the eighteenth century, the painter was identified as Jan van den Hoecke, who was a principal assistant of Rubens in the 1630s. The painting was then sold in 1880 in Paris, where it was later found by Ludwig Burchard in 1929. Eventually, the painting sold at auction in 1980 at Christie's, purchased by the National Gallery, London for $5 million.[3]

There has been some doubt cast over the attribution of the painting to Rubens, led by the artist and scholar of Fayum portraits Euphronsyne Doxiades. She argues that it varies in details from copies of the original made during Rubens' lifetime, that it does not employ the layering technique of glazing common in oil painting at the time and mastered by Rubens, and that its provenance can not be documented with certainty between 1641 and 1929. A dendrochronological examination of the painting, however, confirms that the painting dates to the correct period, and the attribution has been accepted by a majority of the art historical scholarly community.

The painting was earlier attributed to the Dutch painter Gerard van Honthorst, a painter who, like Rubens, worked in Rome in the shadow of Caravaggio at the start of the 17th century.

The painting was cleaned and investigated in the National Gallery in 1983.[4] It is noteworthy for the masterful and elaborate painting of the draperies and for the absence of blue pigments. Rubens employed carmine (kermes) lake, lead-tin-yellow, vermilion and ochres in addition to lead white and charcoal black.

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Samson, the Jewish hero, fell in love with Delilah. She was bribed by the Philistines, and discovered that his strength came from his hair which had never been cut. While he was asleep it was cut, Samson was drained of his strength and the Philistines were able to capture him. (Old Testament, Judges 16: 17-20). Rubens depicts a candlelit interior; the Philistines wait at the door, one of their number cuts Samson's hair, while an elderly woman provides extra light. In a niche behind is a statue of the goddess of love, Venus, with Cupid - a reference to the cause of Samson's fate.

This painting was commissioned by Nicolaas Rockox, alderman of Antwerp, for his town house in 1609-10. It shows the influence of the antique, as well as Michelangelo and Caravaggio. There is a preparatory drawing (private collection, Amsterdam) and a modello (Cincinnati Museum of Art).

In 1608 Rubens hastily returned home to Antwerp after an absence of eight years in Italy, in a vain attempt to reach the bedside of his dying mother. His arrival in the city virtually coincided with the truce between Spanish Flanders and the Dutch United Provinces, and he was quickly appointed official painter to the Regents of the Southern Netherlands, the Archduke Albert and the Archduchess Isabella, with leave to remain domiciled in Antwerp. He was never to return to Italy, although he was irrevocably marked by his study of ancient Greco-Roman and Italian Renaissance art. In Antwerp he proceeded to work towards the reconstruction of his war-torn country and to establish himself as a leading figure in its artistic and intellectual life.

One of his closest friends and patrons at this time was the wealthy and influential alderman Nicolaas Rockocx, for whom Rubens painted Samson and Delilah to hang in a prominent position over the mantelpiece of his `great saloon' in Antwerp. When the picture was hung at its original height of just over two metres (seven feet) some years ago in an exhibition at the National Gallery, it became clear how nicely Rubens had calculated the angle of vision. The surface of Delilah's bed receded to a properly horizontal plane, with the space of the room leading convincingly back to the wall and the door through which the Philistine soldiers enter to capture the hapless Jewish hero. To the multiple light sources in this room, for which Rubens was indebted to his friend Elsheimer - the flaming brazier, the candle held by the old procuress and the torch of the Philistines - we must add in our mind's eye a fire blazing in the fireplace below, highlighting the saffron satin throw behind Delilah and the patterned Oriental rug, and casting warm reflections in the shadows of the skin tones and the white drapery, where the coarse brown hatching of the underpaint is left uncovered or barely veiled.

The story of Samson's fatal passion for Delilah is told in the Old Testament (Judges 16:4-6, 16-21). Bribed by his Philistine enemies, she cozens Samson into revealing the source of his supernatural strength: his uncut hair. As he lies asleep in her lap during a night of love, she calls in a barber to cut off `the seven locks of his head'. The tale of a man brought low by lust for a woman was often treated in sixteenth-century Netherlandish art, and Rubens follows this Northern tradition by introducing a procuress, who does not appear in the Bible. Her profile juxtaposed with that of the youthful harlot both reveals her own past and suggests Delilah's future. At the same time, the painting is rich in Italian memories, not least in the ample scale of its life-size foreground figures, accommodated on the panel only by being shown reclining. A statue of Venus and Cupid presides over the erotic scene. Brawny Samson derives from antique sculpture and from Michelangelo; Delilah's pose is that of Michelangelo's Leda and Night in reverse. In Delilah's breast band Rubens draws on Roman marbles, but following his own maxim translates marble into soft and yielding flesh - some of the fleshiest ever painted.

Ultimately, however, this sumptuous picture is entirely original, and nowhere is this more apparent than in the incongruously dainty professional gesture of the barber and in Delilah's ambiguous expression, compounded of sensuality, triumph and pity.

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Samson and Delilah is an oil painting attributed to Peter Paul Rubens, a prolific Flemish Baroque painter well-known for a variety of 17th Century masterpieces. The painting depicts a scene from the Samson and Delilah story from the Old Testament.

Previously, Samson and Delilah was a painting attributed to Gerard van Honthorst, a Dutch painter with a similar style. Like Honthorst, Rubens worked in the city of Rome during the 17th century, in Caravaggio’s shadow.

About the Painting
The painting depicts a candlelit room, with a sleeping Samson in the lap of Delilah, and a group of Philistines in a doorway off to the right. According to the Old Testament, Samson’s strength was from his hair, cut by a Philistine to try and diminish the strength of the here. The oil painting is full of symbolic icons and gestures: the statue of Venus and Cupid, the crossed hands of the Philistine that signals deceit and the old woman believed to be a procuress.

Completed during 1609-1610, Samson and Delilah was commissioned by an alderman of Antwerp. Nicolaas Rockox, the alderman, wanted the piece for display in his townhouse. The painting is clearly influenced by Caravaggio as well as Michelangelo and the antique.

The pale skin of Delilah draws the eye immediately to her upper body, as her skin appears luminous against the darkened surroundings. Delilah’s hand is the center-point of the painting, resting upon Samson’s naked back.

Rubens is a master at creating liquid shadow. Initial drawings would have been made using small pointed brushes to highlight the muscle tone, for example, Samson’s upper torso, before the shadows/flat areas were filled in. Rubens also used another technique in this painting: scratching into the wet oil paint. Example: perfume pots near the door.

About the Artist
Rubens created a number of history paintings, altarpieces, landscapes and portraits as well as allegorical and mythological pieces. Rubens had a large studio in Antwerp that produced paintings that were popular throughout Europe. A painter, art collector and diplomat knighted by Charles I and Philip IV, Rubens had a successful life.

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Samson and Delilah
1 One day Samson went to Gaza, where he saw a prostitute. He went in to spend the night with her.
2 The people of Gaza were told, “Samson is here!” So they surrounded the place and lay in wait for him all night at the city gate.They made no move during the night, saying, “At dawn we’ll kill him.”
3 But Samson lay there only until the middle of the night. Then he got up and took hold of the doors of the city gate, together with the two posts, and tore them loose, bar and all. He lifted them to his shoulders and carried them to the top of the hill that faces Hebron.
4 Some time later, he fell in love with a woman in the Valley of Sorek whose name was Delilah.
5 The rulers of the Philistines went to her and said, “See if you can lure him into showing you the secret of his great strength and how we can overpower him so we may tie him up and subdue him. Each one of us will give you eleven hundred shekels[a] of silver.”
6 So Delilah said to Samson, “Tell me the secret of your great strength and how you can be tied up and subdued.”
7 Samson answered her, “If anyone ties me with seven fresh bowstrings that have not been dried, I’ll become as weak as any other man.”
8 Then the rulers of the Philistines brought her seven fresh bowstrings that had not been dried, and she tied him with them.
9 With men hidden in the room, she called to him, “Samson, the Philistines are upon you!” But he snapped the bowstrings as easily as a piece of string snaps when it comes close to a flame. So the secret of his strength was not discovered.
10 Then Delilah said to Samson, “You have made a fool of me; you lied to me. Come now, tell me how you can be tied.”
11 He said, “If anyone ties me securely with new ropes that have never been used, I’ll become as weak as any other man.”
12 So Delilah took new ropes and tied him with them. Then, with men hidden in the room, she called to him, “Samson, the Philistines are upon you!” But he snapped the ropes off his arms as if they were threads.
13 Delilah then said to Samson, “All this time you have been making a fool of me and lying to me. Tell me how you can be tied.” He replied, “If you weave the seven braids of my head into the fabric on the loom and tighten it with the pin, I’ll become as weak as any other man.” So while he was sleeping, Delilah took the seven braids of his head, wove them into the fabric
14 and tightened it with the pin. Again she called to him, “Samson, the Philistines are upon you!” He awoke from his sleep and pulled up the pin and the loom, with the fabric.
15 Then she said to him, “How can you say, ‘I love you,’ when you won’t confide in me? This is the third time you have made a fool of me and haven’t told me the secret of your great strength.”
16 With such nagging she prodded him day after day until he was sick to death of it.
17 So he told her everything. “No razor has ever been used on my head,” he said, “because I have been a Nazirite dedicated to God from my mother’s womb. If my head were shaved, my strength would leave me, and I would become as weak as any other man.”
18 When Delilah saw that he had told her everything, she sent word to the rulers of the Philistines, “Come back once more; he has told me everything.” So the rulers of the Philistines returned with the silver in their hands.
19 After putting him to sleep on her lap, she called for someone to shave off the seven braids of his hair, and so began to subdue him.And his strength left him.
20 Then she called, “Samson, the Philistines are upon you!” He awoke from his sleep and thought, “I’ll go out as before and shake myself free.” But he did not know that the Lord had left him.
21 Then the Philistines seized him, gouged out his eyes and took him down to Gaza. Binding him with bronze shackles, they set him to grinding grain in the prison. 22 But the hair on his head began to grow again after it had been shaved.

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Samson and Delilah was painted early in Van Dyck’s career, around 1618-21. During this time, Van Dyck was active in the Antwerp studio of the Flemish master Peter Paul Rubens, 22 years his senior. It is not known exactly when or under what terms Van Dyck entered Rubens’ studio, whether he was a pupil (or student) or rather an associate, contracted to work on specific commissions. In any case, Rubens had a definite impact upon Van Dyck’s work, revealed most clearly through Samson and Delilah.

Samson and Delilah appears to be a response to Rubens earlier version of the same subject (above). Van Dyck takes a number of elements directly from Rubens—most notably the composition: the side-on-view, with the muscular Samson slumped in a heap on Delilah’s lap. However, Van Dyck reverses the grouping, perhaps indicating that he based his own painting on prints after the painting—where the composition is always reversed—rather than the original.

Yet, Van Dyck’s Samson and Delilah also departs from Rubens’ model in a number of important ways and, as such, can be considered a challenge to the master’s example with Van Dyck asserting his position as the foremost painter of his generation.

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