Andrea Mantegna, 'Samson and Delilah', about 1500
About the work
Overview
Lured by a bribe from the Philistines, Israel’s enemies, Delilah agreed to collaborate in the capture of Samson – the Israelite hero of the Old Testament, and her lover. She cut off the source of his legendary strength – his hair – while he slept (Judges 16: 18–21). Her treachery is underlined by the Latin inscription carved into the tree: ‘woman is three times worse than the devil himself.’
A luscious vine, heavy with ripe grapes, encircles the tree, which has no leaves of its own. The grapes may refer to the wine of the Eucharist, which was drunk at Mass and thought to transform into Christ’s blood. Like Samson, Christ was betrayed and handed over to his enemies; unlike Samson, his death was believed to redeem humanity of sin.
Mantegna made a number of images of famous women from the Bible and classical literature, painting them to look like ancient stone or bronze reliefs set against coloured marble backdrops.
Key facts
Details
- Full title
- Samson and Delilah
- Artist
- Andrea Mantegna
- Artist dates
- about 1431 - 1506
- Date made
- about 1500
- Medium and support
- glue tempera on canvas
- Dimensions
- 47 × 36.8 cm
- Acquisition credit
- Bought, 1883
- Inventory number
- NG1145
- Location
- Room 14
- Collection
- Main Collection
- Frame
- 16th-century Italian Frame
Provenance
No. 1145 was sold in 1883 as belonging to the Collection known as the Sunderland drawings. Some or all of these drawings were bought before 1728 from Bartolomeo Buonfiglioli at Bologna by Procurator Zaccaria Sagredo of Venice; they (?) belonged in 1761 to Consul Joseph Smith at Venice and are said to have been purchased in 1763 by Consul (John) Udny and imported into England. They thereafter formed part of the Duke of Marlborough’s library at Blenheim. No. 1145 was purchased at the Sunderland Sale, 15 June, 1883 (lot 82).
Additional information
Text extracted from the ‘Provenance’ section of the catalogue entry in Martin Davies, ‘National Gallery Catalogues: The Earlier Italian Schools’, London 1986; for further information, see the full catalogue entry.
Exhibition history
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2018Mantegna and BelliniThe National Gallery (London)1 October 2018 - 27 January 2019
Bibliography
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1897H. Thode, Mantegna: Mit 105 Abbildungen nach Gemälden, Kupferstichen und Zeichnungen, Bielefeld 1897
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1901P.O. Kristeller, Andrea Mantegna, trans. A. Strong, London 1901
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1901A. Venturi, Storia dell'arte italiana, 11 vols, Milan 1901
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1910F. Knapp, Andrea Mantegna: Des Meisters Gemälde und Kupferstiche, Stuttgart 1910
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1932B. Berenson, Italian Pictures of the Renaissance: A List of the Principal Artists and Their Works, with an Index of Places, Oxford 1932
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1937G. Fiocco, Mantegna, Milan 1937
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1945T. Bodkin, Dismembered Masterpieces: A Plea for Their Reconstruction by International Action, London 1945
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1947R.H. Wilenski, Mantegna (1431-1506) and the Paduan School, London 1947
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1951Davies, Martin, National Gallery Catalogues: The Earlier Italian Schools, London 1951
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1955E. Tietze-Conrat, Mantegna: Paintings, Drawings, Engravings, London 1955
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1961M. Davies, The Earlier Italian Schools, 2nd edn, London 1961
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1961G. Paccagnini, Andrea Mantegna (exh. cat. Museo di Palazzo Ducale (Mantua), September - October 1961), Venice 1961
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1962R. Cipriani, Tutta la pittura del Mantegna, Milan 1962
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1962C. Gilbert, 'The Mantegna Exhibition', The Burlington Magazine, CIV, 1962, pp. 5-9
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1964E. Camesasca, Mantegna, Milan 1964
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1969A.T. Lurie, 'Gerard van Honthorst: Samson and Delilah', Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, LVI/9, 1969, pp. 332-44
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1971N. Garavaglia and N. Garavaglia, The Complete Paintings of Mantegna, London 1971
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1972M. Milner Kahr, 'Delilah', Art Bulletin, LIV, 1972, pp. 282-99
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1986Davies, Martin, National Gallery Catalogues: The Earlier Italian Schools, revised edn, London 1986
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1986R. Lightbown, Mantegna: With a Complete Catalogue of the Paintings, Drawings and Prints, Oxford 1986
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1991J. Dunkerton et al., Giotto to Dürer: Early Renaissance Painting in the National Gallery, New Haven 1991
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1992E. Camesasca, Mantegna, Florence 1992
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1992J. Martineau (ed.), Andrea Mantegna (exh. cat. Royal Academy of Arts, 17 January - 5 April 1992; Metropolitan Museum of Art, 5 May - 12 July 1992), London 1992
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1993F. Ames-Lewis, Mantegna and 15th Century Court Culture, London 1993
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1995A. Cole, Virtue and Magnificence: Art of the Italian Renaissance Courts, New York 1995
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1996C. Gilbert, 'Huldah Solves the Problem: Identifying a Mantegna Subject', Apollo, CXLIII/412, 1996, pp. 10-5
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1998N. Bätzner, Andrea Mantegna, 1430/31-1506, Cologne 1998
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2000M. Rogers, Fashioning Identities in Renaissance Art, Aldershot 2000
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2001
C. Baker and T. Henry, The National Gallery: Complete Illustrated Catalogue, London 2001
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2002S. Blumenröder, 'Andrea Mantegna's Grisaille Paintings: Colour Metamorphosis as a Metaphor for History', in C. Heck and K. Lippincott (eds), Symbols of Time in the History of Art, Turnhout 2002, pp. 41-55
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2004A. De Nicolò Salmazo, Andrea Mantegna, Geneva 2004
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2005C. Higgitt and R. White, 'Analyses of Paint Media: New Studies of Italian Paintings of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries', National Gallery Technical Bulletin, XXVI, 2005, pp. 88-104
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2008S. Blumenröder, Andrea Mantegna: Die Grisaillen. Malerei, Geschichte, und Antike Kunst im Paragone des Quattrocento, Berlin 2008
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2008M. Fabiański, 'The Iconography of Correggio's "Marsyas"', Arte lombarda, 152, 2008, pp. 36-46
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2008Agosti and D. Thiébaut (eds), Mantegna, 1431-1506 (exh. cat. Musée du Louvre, 26 September 2008 - 5 January 2009), Paris 2008
About this record
If you know more about this painting or have spotted an error, please contact us. Please note that exhibition histories are listed from 2009 onwards. Bibliographies may not be complete; more comprehensive information is available in the National Gallery Library.
Images
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