Peter Paul Rubens | Samson and Delilah | NG6461 | National Gallery, London £ other Make this a monthly donation [{"Amount":2.0000,"CurrencyCode":"GBP","DonationDate":"2016-10-25T09:01:14","DonorDisplayName":"Richard Roberts","DonorLocalAmount":2.0000,"DonorLocalCurrencyCode":"GBP","EstimatedTaxReclaim":0.5000,"ImageUrl":"","Message":"I hope this small contribution will allow you to continue your excellent work"},{"Amount":2.0000,"CurrencyCode":"GBP","DonationDate":"2016-10-20T16:29:27","DonorDisplayName":"Joshua Beaumont Houghton Boston","DonorLocalAmount":2.0000,"DonorLocalCurrencyCode":"GBP","EstimatedTaxReclaim":0.0000,"ImageUrl":"","Message":"Thank you for being you!"},{"Amount":20.0000,"CurrencyCode":"GBP","DonationDate":"2016-11-10T19:31:1

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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). Gallery insight: Jacqui Ansell Art historian Jacqui Ansell explores sensual pleasure and moral messages in 'Samson and Delilah' - 5 mins 32 secs Sorry, your browser doesn't support the audio tag.

Transcription Miranda Hinkley (in the studio): Next… the terrible, the traumatic, and the tragic can be, as any visitor to the National Gallery knows, the stuff of great art. Indeed, it’s such familiar subject matter that we’re rarely struck by the disjunction between the pleasure we take in looking at pictures and the emotional and physical pain they often portray. I asked art historian Jacqui Ansell why this was the case, and she suggested we take a look at a sumptuous work by Rubens that depicts just such a painful scene. Miranda Hinkley: Well I’ve come to have a look at one of the Gallery’s best-loved paintings – it’s a painting of Samson and Delilah by Rubens and it depicts a moment in the very well known story where Delilah has managed to discover the secret of Samson’s strength which is his long hair and she’s betraying him, she’s arranging for it to be cut off and there’s a man standing over him as he sleeps in her lap with the scissors.

Jacqui Ansell: Yes, it’s one of those paintings that I think calls you over from a distance and it’s also one of those paintings that I think appeals to lots of different people and appeals to our psyche and to some of our fears, I think. The phrase ‘in Delilah’s lap’ in the 17th century meant to be visiting a prostitute and I think that’s quite evident here, there’s a bit of a castration anxiety, I think, going on here. This is a painting that Brian Sewell says ‘appeals to your fingernails’. Of course I’m not quite sure what he means by that but I think he means that huge expanse of bare back invites you to want to rake your nails down that bare flesh. So immediately we’ve got this association between pleasure and pain and almost the idea of the viewer – the voyeur – taking pleasure in somebody else’s pain. Miranda Hinkley: There’s something about Samson’s vulnerability in this painting which is quite arresting and the way that she’s looking down at him… I mean her hand is very gently on his back, but there’s obviously some kind of evil intent there.

Jacqui Ansell: Yes, I think that one of the most striking things about this painting is the interplay of the hands, because if you look at Samson and that huge back, if you look down his arm, his arm is hanging limp. It’s flaccid, indicative of his spent force, and his hand I always think, his other hand, is placed proprietarily in her lap and he’s resting his head in her lap in a very trusting manner. But I think the most important hand is the hand she places on his back as you point out. Now one of the things that strikes me about this painting is that it is a collective sharp intake of breath – we’re actually looking at a moment, a moment before something very important happens, and what she really doesn’t want to happen is for him to wake up. So she has this hand placed on his back and it’s as though she’s calming him down, as though saying ‘there, there, darling’ and it’s very soothing, but on the other hand of course she’s protecting her own interest, because she doesn’t want him to wake up.

So then of course there’s a sense of what’s going to happen next, and you’ve got the idea that he is about to lose his strength as you pointed out – or rather, the barber is going to cut that lock of hair, and there is this moment of tension. Is that actually going to work? Is he going to lose his strength? We’ve got a load of soldiers waiting in the doorway there – look at the way in which Rubens has controlled that narrative, created that suspense, he’s given us this chiarascura, this light/dark effect where they’re shrouded in the darkness – illuminated faces, anxiously waiting. Is this going to be the trick that finally works? Miranda Hinkley: Part of what makes the painting so sensuous and so appealing to look at is all of this fabric. You’ve got the rich carpet, the red of her dress and then there’s this kind of purple drapery over the top.

Jacqui Ansell: Yes, I think there definitely is the interplay of the sensuous fabric and the sensuality of the figures here, and if you think that this was designed to go above a fireplace then those rich, warm colours that sing out at you were clearly very important for that particular setting. So here we are as a viewer in the present day, admiring the youth and the beauty and the strength of Samson and the skill of the artist painting this, but actually of course what we’re really taking so much pleasure from is something that’s going to end, not only in his arrest by the soldiers, but his eventual blinding, his humiliation as he’s made to grind and do woman’s work, and then of course this culminates in the event in the temple, when his hair grows back, his strength comes back to him, and he commits suicide rather spectacularly as he brings the temple down on all of his tormentors.

Miranda Hinkley: I mean, there are a lot of paintings in the Gallery that show very difficult or violent or kind of traumatic scenes and maybe when we look at them and we derive pleasure and interest from looking at them, it’s really that sense of schadenfreude, that 'thank God that’s not me up there'… Jacqui Ansell: Exactly. So you’ve got a painting which appeals not only to our fingernails, but also to our eyes – it appeals to our mind and our moral senses, but we of course can gaze upon this and we can draw from it whatever we like... if it’s sensuous pleasure, or sensual pleasure, or the moral message... but one thing’s for sure, we’re not going to be blinded for giving into our sexual sin and we can gain pleasure from looking at this painting for ever more. Miranda Hinkley (in the studio): That was Jacqui Ansell, talking about Rubens’s 'Samson and Delilah'.

Samson and Delilah | Rampley and Co Home / Products / Samson and Delilah Samson and Delilah Free Worldwide Delivery On Orders Over £50 Notify me when this product is available: Peter Paul Rubens 1577 – 1640, Samson and Delilah about 1609 – 1610, © The National Gallery, London 100% Silk Designed and Printed in Britain 42cm x 42cm Free Worldwide Delivery This pocket square depicts the gentle scene of biblical characters Samson and Delilah sharing a tender moment. There is a softness in the pose and we as an audience take on a voyeuristic role gazing at a seemingly very intimate moment, however it is in fact a scene of ultimate betrayal. Further painting insights are below. This painting works fantastically as a pocket square due to its rich deep tones. It is truly unique to be able to wear a renowned work of art from one of the most revered Flemish painters and we think the best way to show off the piece is wearing it as a puff or four point fold.

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Sold Out - £69.00 GBP Notify me when this product is available: Peter Paul Rubens 1577 – 1640, Samson and Delilah about 1609 – 1610, © The National Gallery, London 100% Silk Hand Rolled Designed and Printed in Britain 42cm x 42cm Free Worldwide Delivery... Further Details Artist - Peter Paul Rubens Peter Paul Rubens (1577 - 1640) was a remarkable character, not only being a successful painter of European renown but he also played an important diplomatic role in 17th century European politics. In his painting he was a proponent of an extravagant Baroque style that emphasised movement, colour and sensuality and is well known for his Counter-Reformation altarpieces, portraits, landscapes and paintings of mythological subjects. As a famous painter he was often commissioned by European royalty and when a 12 year truce between the Dutch and the Spanish broke down in 1621 Rubens was called to the courts of England and France as they decided who to ally themselves with.

As painters had reason to travel to foreign courts, he was well placed to carry out secret negotiations without his presence arising suspicion. For his efforts the Archduchess Isabella made him ‘gentleman of the household’ in 1627. He then returned to being a prolific painter, producing over 80 paintings in the 1630's for King Phillip of Spain alone. See more information about the artist on his Wikipedia page Peter Paul Rubens . Original Work - The National Gallery This gentle scene depicts biblical characters Samson and Delilah sharing a tender moment. There is a vulnerability captured in this painting by the Flemish Baroque painter, Rubens. There is a softness in the pose and we as an audience take on a voyeuristic role gazing at a seemingly very intimate moment, however it is in fact a scene of ultimate betrayal. Delilah has managed to charm Samson into revealing the secret to his strength, his hair. Rubens depicts a candlelit interior; the Philistines wait at the door, who have come to capture Samson while in a weakened and defenceless state. 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. For more information on the painting, see the National Gallery website . Border Design It was an extensive process to find a border that matched this painting and truly did it justice. In the end we chose to create something lighter than the others in the collection with the use of white as base colour while matching the reds and oranges within the painting for the detailing. In terms of style we’ve tried to match the details found within the blanket in the bottom right hand corner and our corner detailing is particularly similar. Useful Links Samson and Delilah by RUBENS, Peter Paul Oil on wood, 185 x 205 cm National Gallery, London 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.

Samson and Delilah - Google Arts & Culture Samson and Delilah Peter Paul Rubens (Flemish, b.1577, d.1640)Circa 1609 Cincinnati Art Museum Cincinnati Art Museum Rubens traveled in Italy from 1600 to 1608. There he studied classical antiquities, the work of Titian , Michelangelo , and Raphael , and the art of his contemporaries. After returning to his hometown of Antwerp, Rubens was commissioned by Nicolaas Rockox , the burgomaster, or mayor, to make a large painting of Samson and Delilah. For a politician, this biblical story of fatal gullibility may have had particular significance. As part of the process, Rubens made this small oil sketch so that Rockox could see and approve his ideas for the composition and color. It evidently met with the patron’s approval because the finished picture, substantially larger and on display today in the National Gallery in London, hardly differs from the sketch. The Cincinnati sketch demonstrates Rubens’s knowledge and his assimilation of the art of the past.

The pose of Samson, for instance, is inspired not only by the powerful works of Michelangelo, but by works that motivated Michelangelo himself, such as the great "Belvedere Torso" (first century B.C.) from the Vatican collection. Rubens’s strong contrasts of light and shadow, known by the Italian term chiaroscuro, derive from Caravaggio , whose work he would have seen in Rome. Although Rubens created oil sketches primarily as part of his working process, even in his lifetime the sketches were prized by collectors for their unsurpassed facility of line, color, and narrative invention. Read more Anthony van Dyck, Samson and Delilah (article) | Khan Academy Anthony van Dyck, Samson and Delilah Email A calm before a storm In his painting Samson and Delilah, Anthony van Dyck presents a moment filled with tension—a calm before a storm. Instead of depicting the climax of this Old Testament story, he represented the moment immediately before the action takes place. The heroic Samson is about to have his hair cut—removing the source of his superhuman strength.

Lulled to sleep by his lover Delilah, the Philistine guards lie in wait ready to capture and imprison him as soon as the deed is done. Anthony van Dyck, Samson and Delilah, c.1618-20, oil on canvas, 152.3 x 232 cm. (Dulwich Picture Gallery, London) Anthony van Dyck, Samson and Delilah, c. 1618-20, oil on canvas, 152.3 x 232 cm. (Dulwich Picture Gallery, London) In Van Dyck’s scene, however, the focus is not the hero—Samson—but Delilah. The light within the painting is focused on her, while the edges of the canvas recede into darkness. She is shown bejewelled and in a state of undress, draped in luxurious silk and lounging on a bed covered with rich, brocaded fabric. Delilah’s soft and milky-white skin is in complete contrast to the swarthy Samson, who is covered with only a fur loincloth.

All the action within the scene appears to rest on her as she raises a silencing finger, both to hush the guards and to command them into action. The two women behind Delilah look on with interest and apprehension, waiting to see whether Samson will wake from his slumber. The guards, too, watch with anxiety, knowing that even their combined strength would be no match for the superhuman Samson. Van Dyck heightens the drama further by giving the barber what appear to be giant sheep shears, when normal scissors would do the same job. Van Dyck and Rubens 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.

Peter Paul Rubens, Samson and Delilah, c. 1609-1610, oil on panel, 185 x 205 cm. (The National Gallery, London) Peter Paul Rubens, Samson and Delilah, c. 1609-1610, oil on panel, 185 x 205 cm. (The National Gallery, London) 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. Jacob Maltham (printmaker), after Peter Paul Rubens, Samson and Delilah, c.1612, engraving (The British Museum, London) Jacob Maltham (printmaker), after Peter Paul Rubens, Samson and Delilah, c.

1612, engraving (The British Museum, London) Van Dyck also borrows from Rubens in more stylistic terms, for example, in the portrayal of flesh and musculature. This is particularly evident in Delilah’s décolletage and Samson’s muscled back. A fascination with textures and textiles is shared by both Rubens and Van Dyck, and the gold-brocaded fabric appears to have been a studio prop, appearing in other paintings by both Rubens and Van Dyck, including Rubens’ St. Ambrose and the Emperor Theodosius ) (Kunsthistoriches Museum, Vienna) and Van Dyck’s The Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine of Alexandria (Museo del Prado, Madrid). Greater drama 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.

Left: Detail, Peter Paul Rubens, Samson and Delilah, c.1609-1610, oil on panel, 185 x 205 cm. (The National Gallery, London); right: detail, Anthony van Dyck, Samson and Delilah, c. 1618-20, oil on canvas, 152.3 x 232 cm. (Dulwich Picture Gallery, London) Left: Detail, Peter Paul Rubens, Samson and Delilah, c. 1609-1610, oil on panel, 185 x 205 cm. (The National Gallery, London); right: detail, Anthony van Dyck, Samson and Delilah, c. 1618-20, oil on canvas, 152.3 x 232 cm. (Dulwich Picture Gallery, London) Rubens sets his version of the story in a bed chamber at night. In complete contrast, Van Dyck chooses to set his scene outside and in bright daylight.

Van Dyck’s decision to depict the moment before Samson’s hair is cut is also an important divergence, since in Rubens’ painting the action is already underway. Van Dyck’s aim is seemingly to exploit this moment of tension to create a greater sense of drama within the picture. Van Dyck gives greater agency to the figure of Delilah who, with her raised finger, orchestrates the entire company of characters. Within this context, he is also able to include the exaggerated and theatrical reactions of the supporting cast—especially that of the younger woman who stands behind Delilah. This was evidently something Van Dyck gave considerable thought to and to which he returned at various stages during the course of painting, as evidenced by an X-ray of the work (below), which shows that Van Dyck adjusted the fingers of the woman, splaying them out further so as to create a more dramatic silhouette against the blue sky. X-ray, Anthony van Dyck, Samson and Delilah, c. 1618-20, oil on canvas, 152.3 x 232 cm. (Dulwich Picture Gallery, London) X-ray, Anthony van Dyck, Samson and Delilah, c.

1618-20, oil on canvas, 152.3 x 232 cm. (Dulwich Picture Gallery, London) Provenance and attribution Little is known about the early history of ownership of Samson and Delilah: either who owned it or where it was displayed. Yet, the position of the figures—peering down—might suggest that it was hung high. Moreover, the presence of a ledge at the bottom of a painting could have an architectural significance, indicating perhaps that the work was hung over a mantel. By the early 18th century the painting was recorded in Amsterdam, and was later bought by Noel Desenfans (the founder of Dulwich Picture Gallery) at a London sale in 1783. The painting formed part of the core collection of Dulwich Picture Gallery, when it opened in 1811. Yet, until 1880, it was considered to be the work of Peter Paul Rubens. Today, the painting’s attribution is restored to Van Dyck and stands as an important example of the artist’s early work and the influence of Rubens on his career. Is “Samson and Delilah” a fake?

- Salon.com Monday, Dec 19, 2005 12:45 PM UTC Is “Samson and Delilah” a fake? Just in time for London's big Rubens exhibition, a challenge to one of the heroic Flemish painter's most celebrated pictures heats up again. Topics: Entertainment News There are few things the art world loves more than the whiff of scandal — except, of course, a genuine, full-blown scandal. The bigger the money, the reputations of the power players and institutions, or the assumptions and authority of the art history that are involved, the better. Now, as London’s august National Gallery, home to one of the world’s great collections of European art, trots out more than 100 drawings and paintings by the 17th century Flemish master Peter Paul Rubens in a blockbuster survey, “Rubens: A Master in the Making” (on view through Jan. 15), a long-standing controversy surrounding one of the highlights of the show has resurfaced.

At issue: the authenticity of “Samson and Delilah,” the celebrated painting from around 1609-10 that depicts the Old Testament hero Samson in the lap of the lover who betrayed him. The work was made for Nicolaas Rockox, a well-known city-government official in Antwerp, Belgium, just after Rubens returned to that city after eight years in Italy. The dispute over its authorship pits the Athens-based artist, author and independent scholar Euphrosyne Doxiades and her supporters — unassuming Davids in a story about an artist whose subjects were often drawn from history and myth — against the Goliath of one of the world’s most venerated art repositories. So could the National Gallery’s “Samson and Delilah,” for which it paid more than $5 million at a 1980 Christie’s auction — a record at the time — be a fake? After years of study, Doxiades believes there is ample evidence that the painting may not be the masterpiece the National Gallery believes it owns — enough evidence to, if not prove her case, at least warrant an open investigation.

Among the criticisms, Doxiades and other challengers say the composition of the painting is not the same one that must have appeared in Rubens’ original; they believe the picture is painted in a style that is more heavy-handed than the master’s own renowned style and they also find it odd that, in the dramatic image, one of Samson’s feet is truncated. (The hero’s essential extremity is not fully depicted within the pictorial space.) “Rubens is the painter’s painter par excellence; as a colorist and a draftsman, he is unique in the history of art,” Doxiades notes. Her husky voice is full of passion when she speaks about the art and artists she admires. It also carries a hint of weariness, for she has been investigating the history of the disputed painting for more than a decade.

“When I first saw the National Gallery’s ‘Samson and Delilah’ in 1987,” she says, “immediately I thought it could not have been painted by Rubens and I supposed that it was a copy — a 20th century copy.” For an institution like the National Gallery to present such a work as genuine, she says, is “offensive.” In the context of the big survey, which tracks the artist’s rise from a prodigious apprentice in Antwerp’s guild system to the leading international painter of his time, that’s a stinging criticism of one of the show’s most celebrated pieces. The arguments that Doxiades and others who dispute the authenticity of the National Gallery’s “Samson and Delilah” have put forward appear on a new Web site, AfterRubens.org, which Doxiades and her son, a London computer expert, launched to coincide with the National Gallery’s splashy Rubens presentation.

In the exhibition, along with “Samson and Delilah,” imposing works like “The Fall of Phaeton” (circa 1604-06) and “The Massacre of the Innocents” (circa 1611-12) showcase the superb draftsmanship, the sweeping, inventive compositions and the paint-handling bravura that are hallmarks of Rubens’ muscular art. In Britain, the New Statesman praised the show for doing “full justice” to Rubens’ impressive “early prowess,” and for making viewers “impatient” to learn more about his later accomplishments. In the Guardian, critic Simon Schama pointed out that the show calls attention to the “meaty, animal energy and high-voltage design” aspects for which Rubens is renowned. Doxiades just wishes that the museum were showing, as she puts it, the real “Samson and Delilah” to help illustrate Rubens’ considerable achievements during the early phase of his career. The National Gallery, by including the disputed work in the current exhibition and effectively ignoring the debate surrounding it, believes it is doing just that.

Born in 1946, Doxiades studied with the Austrian expressionist painter Oskar Kokoschka at the school he ran in Salzburg and at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan. Later, when she was in her early 40s, she studied at the Wimbledon School of Art in London, as well. A regular instructor at the Aegean Center for the Fine Arts, an international art school on the Greek island of Paros, Doxiades wrote “The Mysterious Fayum Portraits” (Thames & Hudson, 2000), a respected study of ancient, Roman-Egyptian paintings that were used, in their time, to honor the dead, and whose haunting beauty and technical refinement have dazzled artists right up to the present day. In 1992, along with the London artists Steven Harvey and Siân Hopkinson, Doxiades submitted a written analysis to the National Gallery challenging the designated authorship of its “Samson and Delilah.” (You can get the report in PDF format here .) For a while, it appeared that the museum took their argument seriously enough to have entered their analysis into its permanent research file on the historic work of art.

More recently, however, in light of the current exhibition, the museum seems to regard the challenge as something of an annoyance. “Anyone is allowed to say anything about any painting in a public collection,” notes David Jaffe, the National Gallery’s current senior curator, who says Doxiades and her colleagues’ questions about the painting are “welcome.” But he adds that he thinks their argument “probably just died out because there was no serious Rubens scholar who believed it.” Jaffe’s predecessor, Christopher Brown, who is now director of the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology at Oxford University, had been in communication with Doxiades about the disputed Rubens painting during his tenure in London. In response to the 1992 analysis that Doxiades sent him, Brown had written back to the Greek artist, admitting that, because of the artwork’s peculiar provenance, which was very sketchy, it was “impossible to be one-hundred percent certain that this is the picture [that Rubens] painted for Rockox.” Brown did note, however, that there was “much circumstantial evidence” to support the assertion that the painting indeed was a real Rubens.

(Asked to comment for Salon on his past involvement in the controversy surrounding “Samson and Delilah,” Brown replied, by e-mail: “I am sorry but I don’t want to do this. Please address your questions to the National Gallery.”) A few years after Doxiades and her colleagues sent their 1992 paper to the museum, the London Times’ arts writer Dalya Alberge published an article about their challenge. Doxiades recalls that Alberge contacted Brown, who “agreed to do a dendrochronology test and said that I could be present.” At the time, Doxiades remembers, “it was very rewarding” to be taken seriously by the museum’s chief curator, and to see that Peter Klein from the University of Hamburg, one of Europe’s — and the world’s — best-known dendrochronologists, had been brought in to do the test. (Dendrochronology examines tree rings in pieces of wood to establish their age.

The technique has been used to determine when old pictures on wooden panels — including many Netherlandish paintings on oak — were created.) Ultimately, though, Klein’s wood-age test corroborated the National Gallery’s claim of the work’s authenticity, at least in terms of its physical age. Still, Doxiades had her doubts, especially since the opportunity to get up close and personal with the centuries-old artwork at the time of the test had allowed her to see it unencumbered, without a frame. It was then that she noticed that the backing board on which it had been mounted looked like blockboard, a modern kind of plywood. “Stylistically, it was all wrong,” she says. “As an object, it had no presence.” By contrast, she notes, “Even at a distance, in a museum, when an object does have a presence, I feel like crossing myself like a Greek Orthodox, because it is almost religiously valid.” Instead, she explains, when she encountered “Samson and Delilah” up close, “There was just this piece of dead timber lying on a blockboard; it looked like it had been ironed on.

It had no texture of oak whatsoever.” (More recently, Doxiades became aware of a document issued by the Oxford Dendrochronology Laboratory, an independent tree-ring dating organization in England. It referred to the disputed painting’s wood support as lacking essential sapwood elements that would make for a more accurate reading of its age. The laboratory noted that, as a result, the work could “just as easily” have been painted as late as 1620 or 1630. Physical age alone, such remarks seem to suggest, may not precisely determine if the picture is a Rubens or not.) Among several stylistic aspects of the painting, Doxiades also noticed that, at the lower right edge of the picture, Samson’s stretched-out right foot was truncated — and that it had intentionally been painted that way. That detail, she says, appeared inconsistent with Rubens’ usual compositional practices and with two well-known copies of the image that had been made during Rubens’ lifetime. One was a detailed engraving of his “Samson and Delilah” made by Jacob Matham just a few years after Rubens completed his picture.

On his engraving, Matham even included a written dedication to Nicolaas Rockox, calling attention to the precision with which he had copied the Rubens original. A second copy of the Rubens work was actually a painting within a painting; it appears above a monumental mantelpiece in “Supper at the House of Burgomaster Rockox” (circa 1630), a view of the sitting room in Rockox’s Antwerp home where the Rubens picture had been installed. Although less detailed than a full-scale copy of the original would have been, the composition of the painting, by the Flemish artist Frans Francken II (1581-1642), clearly matches up with that of Matham’s engraving. (Today, Francken’s painting is in the collection of the Alte Pinakothek.) Among numerous critical points or discrepancies mentioned on the AfterRubens.org Web site or in the 1992 analysis paper written by Doxiades and her colleagues is the fact that Matham’s and Francken’s “Samson and Delilah” copies show only three Philistine soldiers lurking in a doorway on the right side of the picture, whereas the National Gallery’s picture depicts five.

(Delilah, accepting a bribe from the Philistines, conspired to cut her Jewish lover’s hair, the source of his strength, while he was sleeping, then turn him over, powerless, to the military men.) The Web site also criticizes the “hack-illustration” quality of the drawing of the face of an old woman who appears next to Delilah, holding a candle, and of the rendering of Samson’s face and head (with its “abandoned, half-drawn curls” and “formless jumble of smudged browns” for a beard.) It also calls attention, most obviously, to the same old woman’s uplifted right hand, which displays none of the masterly foreshortening and understanding of anatomy that seem so effortless in much of Rubens’ other work, like another old woman’s outstretched hand in “The Massacre of the Innocents.” The criticism of the National Gallery’s “Samson and Delilah” also raises questions about its provenance, which becomes murky and hard to confirm after Rockox’s death in 1640, when it was auctioned off with the rest of his estate.

Thereafter, as far as existing official records are concerned, it disappeared. In 1674, in the records of the collection of the prince of Liechtenstein, a reference does turn up to a work titled “Caritas Romana,” attributed to “Joan Hoek.” (That would be Jan van den Hoecke (1611-51), a student of Rubens who became a well-known Flemish painter in his own right). Much later, as its subject matter became better understood, that painting became known as “Samson and Delilah” instead. However, as the former director of the Liechtenstein Collection explained in writing to Doxiades, no one knows exactly who figured out what the picture depicted and renamed it accordingly. He also confirmed that, in contrast to the usual practice, the artwork bore no royal seals designating it as the former property of the Liechtenstein Collection. That same painting was sold in Paris in 1881, possibly to an independent art dealer. It was then acquired by a German industrialist. (Why it was put up for sale remains unknown.

That curious fact prompted the AfterRubens.org Web site to note: “[W]e must accept” that, for nearly two centuries, “successive generations of curators at the Liechtenstein Collection had failed to realize that they were in possession of a masterpiece.”) The painting resurfaced in Paris in 1929, and soon thereafter was attributed to the 17th century Dutch artist Gerrit van Honthorst before being declared a real Rubens by the Rubens expert Ludwig Burchard. At this point, too, Burchard first indicated in writing that the picture had once been part of the Liechtenstein Collection (a claim that the 1980 Christie’s sale catalog would later make again). Supposedly, the painting that the National Gallery purchased at auction, which was sold off by the German industrialist’s heirs, was the same work that once had been in Liechtenstein.

However, AfterRubens.org points out, “[T]here is no evidence whatsoever to show that the National Gallery painting, which appeared in 1929, is the same object as the Liechtenstein Collection painting which was sold [to the German industrialist] in 1881.” Thus, the question remains: After Rockox died, whatever happened to the painting Rubens had made for the good Antwerp burgher? To date, no clear, firm answer has emerged. The Belgian painter, writer and filmmaker Harold Van de Perre, who has written a book about Rubens and authored a screenplay for a film about the artist, writes on the AfterRubens.org Web site that he has personally visited all the major museums in the world that display works by the Flemish master.

“A trained eye …,” he states, “can see that the ‘Samson and Delilah’ is clearly a copy” because “what makes Rubens unique and the thing that constitutes his signature, namely his powerful brushstroke, is just not present.” Jane Pack, an American painter who has taught for nearly 20 years at the Aegean Center for the Fine Arts, where Euphrosyne Doxiades has been her colleague, and who has followed the Greek artist’s critique of the National Gallery’s painting, specializes in the kinds of classical painting techniques that Rubens employed. These techniques include glazing, or the building up of watery layers of transparent oil paint that can give a painted image a distinct luminosity. As Pack sees the disputed “Samson and Delilah,” one of its most obvious discrepancies is that it was “painted with a post-impressionist mindset, although it’s meant to be a baroque painting.” Rubens was known for “starting with a transparent lay-in of shadow areas” and then “building up opaque paint in the lights, which he applied quite heavily,” Pack explains.

“He manipulated these opaque lights” in his work, she says, “with quite a heavy hand, making a kind of bumpy surface,” but thereafter he was “very careful about differences between transparency and opacity.” This is where the glazing technique came in, “giving that golden glow that is typical of Rubens.” Typically, she adds, in the Flemish master’s work, “the glaze looks like it is held in all the crevices” of a painting’s surface, but in the disputed “Samson and Delilah,” “that is not at all evident; in fact, you don’t … see any evidence that it has been glazed at all.” Pack explains that the baroque artist’s bag of painterly tricks included a skilled use of glazing — which can also be thought of as an optical layering on of color — to achieve spatial effects and the contouring of forms, and to give a convincing sense of where light fell on the subject matter he portrayed.

By contrast, she says, the National Gallery’s painting appears to be the product of a more modern hand, since its colors appear to have been physically mixed instead of constructed through glazing; that is, instead of building up transparent layers of color to suggest forms and shadows, its maker appeared to have taken the post-impressionist approach of placing different kinds of lighter or darker colors side by side to suggest three-dimensional modeling and the play of light. The touch and the appearance of that more modern kind of painting feel and look inherently heavier and less nuanced. “Post-impressionist painters never deal with transparency and opaqueness very much, and they never glaze,” Pack says. “They’re more likely to try to mix colors directly and …to play with where they are placed in space. That’s what you see in the National Gallery’s ‘Samson and Delilah.'” And then there’s that pesky foot. Compared to similar details in some of Rubens’ other works, it offers a “striking difference” and an obvious “contradiction” that even a “child can see,” AfterRubens.org points out.

Samson’s entire, extended right foot is clearly visible in the Matham engraving and in Francken’s tableau, with an ample amount of space between the tips of the sleepy strongman’s toes and the right-hand edge of each respective image. In the National Gallery’s painting, though, the toes of Samson’s extended right foot are cut off at the picture’s edge. Doxiades and her colleagues argue that the real Rubens “Samson and Delilah” that Matham and Francken would have copied would have depicted Samson’s right foot just as they did. However, senior curator Jaffe scoffs about the hair-shorn hero’s truncated toes: “Oh come on! It’s what artists do! It’s called mannerism.

It’s a normal part of 16th century aesthetics.” Jaffe admits that he often finds “that contemporary painters, of whatever ilk, or conservators, who look at things totally differently, have valuable things to say which you learn from.” But, for now, he still dismisses the challengers of the National Gallery’s “Samson and Delilah” as dissenters who are merely “trying to boost their own fame and fortune.” Nevertheless, some significant critics have submitted comments to or have been quoted on the AfterRubens.org Web site voicing their concerns about the museum’s celebrated painting. There, the Renaissance-art historian Richard Fremantle is quoted remarking, “It is so vulgar. The crudeness of the picture, the color, the manner of portraying it is like no highly intelligent sensitive artist could have painted. Rubens is a great painter. This is not by a great painter.” Similarly, Michael Daley, the director of ArtWatch U.K., a branch of an international monitoring organization that tries to prevent works of art from being harmed by renovation or conservation efforts and which looks after what it calls their “integrity,” notes: “It does seem astonishing that the National Gallery ever considered buying this picture as a Rubens.

Everything that could be wrong with it is.” Other presumably less authorative art lovers also jump into the fray on the Web site’s discussion boards, including Monty Python’s Terry Gilliam, who writes, “Cutting off the toes of a hero’s foot is a clear sign that this painting is not the work of a master. Rubens was a great respecter of naked feet and I am shocked that the National Gallery can hang a painting by someone who has such contempt for the sensitivities of modern, art-loving, pediphiles.” Marc Deblois, a truck driver from London, Canada, is another critic of the painting: “A master surely would not unveil such awful tripe,” he writes. Niki Mardas, Doxiades’ son, who studied classics at Cambridge University and designed AfterRuebens.org, hopes the Web site will help to ignite another round of debate about the painting in the art world. “The government says we just need to have trust in the National Gallery. That’s fine, but … at what point are we allowed to criticize and get a debate going?

… To me that just seems like you’re shutting down debate in the place where you ought most to be having it.” As Doxiades herself puts it, also focusing on the issue of institutional trustworthiness, “I believe museums should be like doctors — you trust them. So when the public trusts a museum like the National Gallery and is told, ‘This is a great masterpiece,’ but it turns out that maybe it isn’t, that’s an insult to the Rembrandts, van Goghs, Vermeers and all the other highlights of the collection. It’s the miseducation of the public that I don’t like.” It’s also a high-priced embarrassment for any museum, although, of course, misattributions of historic artworks do sometimes occur. Still, when they come to light, the authority of recognized “experts” can be rudely knocked down a notch. And that, for some ordinary museum-goers and art-world powers alike, is downright scandalous. Edward M. Gomez writes the daily "World Views" international-news digest for SFGate, the online edition of the San Francisco Chronicle.

Peter Paul Rubens: Samson and Delilah Peter Paul Rubens 1577 – 1640 Samson and Delilah Rate this work of art: [2 votes] Samson has fallen asleep in the lap of his beloved Delilah. Not knowing that she works for his enemy, the Philistines, he told her the secret of his enormous strength: his uncut hair. When he sleeps, the Philistines quickly cut his hair. The statue in the background shows Venus and Cupid, well-known symbols of love. The crossed hands of the Philistine with the scissors stand for deceit. Rubens made this painting for Nicolaas Rockox, an alderman in Antwerp. It was acquired by the National Gallery in 1980. There is a second version, in the Cincinnati Art Museum.

Peter Paul Rubens | artist | 1577 - 1640 | National Gallery, London £ other Make this a monthly donation [{"Amount":5.0000,"CurrencyCode":"GBP","DonationDate":"2016-11-22T10:18:24","DonorDisplayName":"","DonorLocalAmount":5.0000,"DonorLocalCurrencyCode":"GBP","EstimatedTaxReclaim":0.0000,"ImageUrl":"","Message":"These beautiful artworks belong to us all.

Thank you for being custodians of the national collection"},{"Amount":10.0000,"CurrencyCode":"GBP","DonationDate":"2016-06-21T09:56:01","DonorDisplayName":"Jane DALY","DonorLocalAmount":10.0000,"DonorLocalCurrencyCode":"GBP","EstimatedTaxReclaim":2.5000,"ImageUrl":"","Message":"A national treasure that needs supporting"},{"Amount":20.0000,"CurrencyCode":"GBP","DonationDate":"2016-11-16T20:57:11","DonorDisplayName":"Irina ","DonorLocalAmount":20.0000,"DonorLocalCurrencyCode":"GBP","EstimatedTaxReclaim":0.0000,"ImageUrl":"","Message":"One of my favourite museums.

Hope to visit again."},{"Amount":10.0000,"CurrencyCode":"GBP","DonationDate":"2016-11-15T16:27:55","DonorDisplayName":"Janet Scott","DonorLocalAmount":10.0000,"DonorLocalCurrencyCode":"GBP","EstimatedTaxReclaim":2.5000,"ImageUrl":"","Message":"The wonderful National Gallery deserves all the support it can get."},{"Amount":2.0000,"CurrencyCode":"GBP","DonationDate":"2016-10-25T09:01:14","DonorDisplayName":"Richard Roberts","DonorLocalAmount":2.0000,"DonorLocalCurrencyCode":"GBP","EstimatedTaxReclaim":0.5000,"ImageUrl":"","Message":"I hope this small contribution will allow you to continue your excellent work"},{"Amount":20.0000,"CurrencyCode":"GBP","DonationDate":"2016-11-10T19:31:19","DonorDisplayName":"Kate English","DonorLocalAmount":20.0000

,"DonorLocalCurrencyCode":"GBP","EstimatedTaxReclaim":5.0000,"ImageUrl":"","Message":"What an amazing institution!

This is to say thank you for your daily guided tours and the free activities you run for children."},{"Amount":10.0000,"CurrencyCode":"GBP","DonationDate":"2016-08-02T04:18:28","DonorDisplayName":"Suzanne Burke","DonorLocalAmount":10.0000,"DonorLocalCurrencyCode":"GBP","EstimatedTaxReclaim":0.0000,"ImageUrl":"","Message":"Excellent online information for my students!"},{"Amount":5.0000,"CurrencyCode":"GBP","DonationDate":"2016-08-19T23:36:01","DonorDisplayName":"Fangbin Liu","DonorLocalAmount":5.0000,"DonorLocalCurrencyCode":"GBP","EstimatedTaxReclaim":0.0000,"ImageUrl":"","Message":"I like to donate because I love this great museum and the great masterpieces kept in it."},{"Amount":5.0000,"CurrencyCode":"GBP","DonationDate":"2016-11-17T08:56:35","Don

orDisplayName":"Katja Leyendecker","DonorLocalAmount":5.0000,"DonorLocalCurrencyCode":"GBP","EstimatedTaxReclaim":1.2500,"ImageUrl":"","Message":"I had a most wonderful 3 hours in the gallery's 1600s section!

Must return!"},{"Amount":2.0000,"CurrencyCode":"GBP","DonationDate":"2016-10-20T16:29:27","DonorDisplayName":"Joshua Beaumont Houghton Boston","DonorLocalAmount":2.0000,"DonorLocalCurrencyCode":"GBP","EstimatedTaxReclaim":0.0000,"ImageUrl":"","Message":"Thank you for being you!"}] Peter Paul Rubens Early years and Italy Peter Paul Rubens Rubens was a remarkable individual. Not only was he an enormously successful painter whose workshop produced a staggering number of works; but he also played an important diplomatic role in 17th-century European politics. He was clearly a charming and attractive companion, described as having 'a tall stature, a stately bearing, with a regularly shaped face, rosy cheeks, chestnut brown hair, sparkling eyes but with passion restrained, a laughing air, gentle and courteous'. Peter Paul Rubens was born in Siegen in Germany, but from the age of 10 he lived and went to school in Antwerp. His first job, at the age of 13, was as court page to a countess.

It was a prestigious position for a young man, but Rubens found it stifling and began training as an artist. As soon as he had completed his training, he set out for Italy in order to see for himself the great Renaissance and classical works that he knew from copies. For eight years, he travelled and worked in Spain, copying and incorporating the techniques of Renaissance and classical art. Antwerp In 1608 news came that Rubens's mother was dying. He left immediately for Antwerp, but by the time he arrived she had died. Once home, Rubens decided to stay in the city. His reputation had preceded him, and in 1609 at the age of 33 he was appointed court painter to the rulers of the Netherlands, the Archduke Albert and his wife Isabella.The following year, he married his own Isabella - Isabella Brandt. Rubens could now afford to buy a grand house in a fashionable part of Antwerp. He built a large studio to accommodate his pupils and assistants (he received far too many commissions to complete them all single-handedly). He designed it himself in an Italian style. He also added a circular sculpture hall, based on the Pantheon, to the house.

Rubens's major business was altarpieces, particularly suitable for an artist who enjoyed working on a grand scale. A diligent and disciplined man, he rose at 4am each day and worked until 5 in the evening before going out riding to keep himself physically fit. While painting, he would have someone read to him from a work of classical literature. An enthusiastic collector of gems, ancient sculpture and coins, and other curiosities (including an Egyptian mummy), Rubens's collection became a well-known attraction for visiting dignitaries. The diplomat In 1622 Rubens was commissioned to carry out a huge project in Paris for the notoriously difficult Maria de Medici, widow of King Henry IV of France. Two entire galleries were to be decorated with scenes from the lives of the queen and her late husband. The commission was a fraught one. Maria was awkward and changeable; and her favourite, Cardinal Richelieu, saw Rubens as a political threat. After years of wrangling, the project was abandoned half completed when Maria was banished from court. In 1625 the plague reached Antwerp. Rubens moved his family to Brussels until the worst of it had passed.

They then moved back to Antwerp where, to Rubens's horror, his wife became ill and died, probably of plague. Usually a man who prided himself on his stoicism, Rubens was devastated by the loss of 'one whom I must love and cherish as long as I live'. Rubens threw himself into his diplomatic work in order to distract himself. He spent several months in England where he carried out several commissions for Charles I who was a passionate collector of art. One of the commissions that Rubens was to carry out for Charles was the decoration of the roof of his new Banqueting House at Whitehall. Court artist From the mid-1620s Rubens become increasingly busy with diplomatic duties. Antwerp, in the southern Netherlands, was part of an empire ruled by Catholic Spain. The Protestant northern Netherlands were united under Dutch rule. Both sides hoped to unite the Netherlands under their own regime. In 1610, a 12 year truce between the Dutch and the Spanish had allowed the Archdukes Albert and Isabella to continue their Catholic rule in peace and stability. In 1621 the truce came to an end and just at this crucial time, the sovereign Archduke Albert died.

His consort, Isabella, continued as governor but her situation was a precarious one as Spain, France and England tried to decide who they should ally themselves with, and against whom. Rubens was called upon to negotiate in France and England on behalf of Isabella as the representative of the Spanish Netherlands. Because painters often had reason to travel to foreign courts, he was well placed to carry out secret or delicate visits without his presence arousing suspicion. He became a close confidante of Isabella and she valued his advice. In 1624 Rubens was granted a patent of nobility by Isabella's nephew Philip IV and in 1627 she moved him even further up the social scale by making him a 'gentleman of the household'. Last years After 18 months abroad, Rubens had had enough of the thankless task of politicking. He returned to Antwerp to see his children and to look after his domestic affairs. He could also dedicate himself entirely to painting. One of his most important patrons in the 1630s was King Philip IV of Spain who commissioned over 80 paintings. In 1630, at the age of 53, Rubens married again.

To everyone's surprise he did not marry into the nobility, but chose Hélène Fourment, the 16 year-old daughter of a respectable merchant family. Rubens was clearly bowled over by his new wife with whom he had five children, and she figures in numerous portraits, including a version of 'The Judgement of Paris' in which she appears as Venus. During his last years Rubens spent increasing amounts of time with his new young family in his country house, the Chateau de Steen. He began to paint more landscapes, often for his own enjoyment, rather than for sale. Having suffered painfully from gout for several years, in 1639 a particularly bad attack left Rubens unable to paint and he died a few months later in May 1640. Share this artist

Question: Whose painting “Samson and Delilah”, from about 1609, is in the National Gallery in London?
Answer: Peter Paul Rubens