Peter Paul Rubens, 'Samson and Delilah', about 1609-10

Samson and Delilah

Peter Paul Rubens

Room 18

About the work

Overview

Peter Paul Rubens’s Samson and Delilah portrays a tragedy of love and betrayal. Delilah, Samson’s lover, has been bribed to discover the secret of Samson’s supernatural strength. Rubens shows the moment when Delilah tells an accomplice to cut his hair, leaving him powerless. Outside, soldiers wait to capture him.

But maybe Delilah will pay for her treachery. The profile of the old woman behind her is a striking but withered likeness of her own, perhaps suggesting that she will one day lose the beauty that was Samson’s downfall.

During a visit to Italy, Rubens had seen Caravaggio’s experiments in the use of highly contrasting light and shade, and deep, rich colour. On his return, he used these new techniques to paint Samson and Delilah, commissioned by his friend and patron, Nicolaas II Rockox, the mayor of Antwerp, for his private collection.

In-depth

Peter Paul Rubens’s Samson and Delilah portrays a tragedy of love and betrayal. According to the Old Testament, Samson, a Jewish hero blessed with superhuman strength, killed a thousand Philistine soldiers with the jawbone of a donkey. The Philistine leaders wanted revenge. They bribed Delilah, the woman Samson loved, to discover the source of his strength. After several attempts she persuaded him to tell her his secret: his God-given strength lay in his hair, uncut since he was born.

In Rubens’s picture, Samson lies in Delilah’s lap, his dark head resting on the deep crimson of her robe, his powerful body seeming vulnerable in sleep. Delilah’s dishevelled dress, her loosened hair and exposed breasts suggest a sleep after making love. She sits motionless, her face beautiful but almost inscrutable while her accomplice snips away at Samson’s hair. Perhaps it’s possible to read a trace of triumph or pity – or both – as she gazes down at Samson, but only her hand placed gently on his shoulder lets slip a whisper of regret. In radiant pools of light, her soft flesh glows, her golden hair brushes her shoulder and luxuriant textures surround her; all evoke the sensuality of the love now lost. Just one flaring torch illuminates the soldiers waiting outside to capture Samson.

But perhaps Delilah will pay for her treachery. Rubens carefully placed an old woman directly behind her, and mirrored their two profiles. The old woman’s is withered but bears a striking likeness to Delilah’s, perhaps suggesting – in the manner of a vanitas – that she will one day lose the beauty that was Samson’s downfall. Similar old women are sometimes portrayed as brothel keepers in moralising paintings of the time, but we don’t know if this was Rubens’s intention. In the Old Testament there’s no suggestion that Delilah had any such connection – rather that this was a love affair, making her betrayal even more cruel.

Moreover, in the act of treachery itself, Rubens follows the Old Testament description absolutely accurately: Delilah doesn‘t cut Samson’s hair, but gets a man to do it for her. Some have suggested that Rubens chose to show the man’s hands crossed in a position sometimes thought to be symbolic of treachery. It seems more likely that he was demonstrating his skill at painting the hands performing such a delicate action – accurately placed for cutting the curl at that angle and without waking the sleeping man. He also echoed the position of the accomplice’s left hand in Samson’s own, but Samson’s is relaxed rather than in a state of tension.

Rubens painted Samson and Delilah on his return from Italy for the private collection of his friend and patron, Nicolaas II Rockox, the mayor of Antwerp; the theme was popular in the Southern Netherlands at the time. The picture was designed to hang above the mantelpiece of Rockox’s large town house and Rubens chose rich, strongly contrasting colours to contend with the brilliance of the flickering flames of the fire. Rockox was an antiquarian with a large collection of Roman and other classical artefacts. For this reason, perhaps, Rubens included objects that – while not authentic – perhaps give the atmosphere of ancient Rome: the brazier blazing beside Delilah and the tripod it stands on, her bed with the horses’ heads, and the ewer high up on the wall beside it.

Above all – and a true borrowing from antiquity – is the sculpture in the wall niche above the group in the background. Venus, the Roman goddess of love and beauty, stands looking down on the scene with her son, Cupid, god of erotic love. He clings to her, his head raised towards her as if asking a question: why this end to love? Although Venus doesn‘t wear her traditional girdle, said to make her irresistible to anyone she chose to seduce, Rubens has given Delilah such a band over her breasts, adding to her voluptuousness – and implying that she too could not be denied.

While in Rome, Rubens had seen the work of Michelangelo and sculptures such as the Farnese Hercules and the Belvedere Torso, from which he made drawings. These gave him the basis for the musculature of his sleeping Samson. He looked more specifically to Michelangelo for Delilah’s pose – to his sculpture of Night on the left of the sarcophagus of the tomb of Lorenzo de Medici in Florence and to his painting of Leda and the swan (a copy of which is in the National Gallery’s collection). But while the resemblance to the pose is strong, Rubens gave his Delilah more sensual grace, femininity and subtle expression. In Rubens’s painting, Delilah’s thighs are concealed under the swirl of the rich silk of her robe, more tactile and more subtle than Leda’s bare flesh.

Caravaggio’s experiments in chiaroscuro also had a great impact on Rubens. He came to realise how this high contrast between light and shadow conveyed powerful atmosphere and dramatic tension, and used it to the full in his great painting. Chiaroscuro, he discovered, could make flesh glow and objects reflect and shine. Shadows could build a sense of fear and dread. Even if we don’t know the story, the flickering light captures the drama of the complex group where Samson’s hair is being cut, with every eye focused on that curl. And just the single flare of a torch on the glittering eyes of the soldiers waiting in the dark, pushes the tension to the extreme.

Key facts

Details

Full title: Samson and Delilah
Artist: Peter Paul Rubens
Artist dates: 1577 - 1640
Date made: about 1609-10
Medium and support: oil on wood
Dimensions: 185 × 205 cm
Acquisition credit: Bought, 1980
Inventory number: NG6461
Location: Room 18
Collection: Main Collection
Frame: 21st-century Replica Frame

Provenance

Samson and Delilah was painted, probably in 1609, for Nicolaas Rockox, burgomaster of Antwerp and one of Rubens’ most influential patrons in the years immediately following his return from Italy. Samson and Delilah was sold by Rockox’s heirs to the Antwerp art dealer Guillaum Forchoudt, who in turn sold it to the Prince of Liechtenstein. It was in the Liechtenstein palace in Vienna by 1700. It was sold from that collection in 1880 and, after some years of obscurity, was rediscovered in Paris in 1929. In the following year it was sold to the Hamburg tobacco magnate, August Neuerburg. whose family sent it for sale in London in 1980. It was purchased at auction by the National Gallery.

Additional information

Text extracted from the catalogue entry in Christopher Brown, ‘Flemish Paintings’, London 1987; for further information, see the full catalogue entry.

Exhibition history

2008

Massacre of the Innocents and Samson and Delilah

Art Gallery of Ontario

15 October 2008 - 15 April 2009
2017

Rubens and Rembrandt

The National Gallery (London)

22 March 2017 - 6 August 2017

Bibliography

1767

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1986

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1987

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1989

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1989

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1990

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1990

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1992

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1993

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1994

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1995

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1996

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2000

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2000

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2000

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2001

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2001

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2002

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2003

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2004

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2004

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2004

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2004

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2004

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2004

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2004

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2005

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2005

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2005

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2006

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2006

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2006

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2006

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2006

K. Pisarek, 'The "Samson and Delilah": A Question of Attribution', ArtWatch UK: Journal, 21, 2006, pp. 6-16
2007

A. Georgievska-Shine, 'Rubens and the tropes of deceit in Samson and Delilah', Word & Image, XXIII/4, 2007, pp. 460-73
2007

D. Jaffé, Samson and Delilah: A Rubens Painting Returns, Milan 2007
2007

D. Jaffé, 'Rubens' Samson and Delilah, an Antwerp Chimney Piece in Context', in D. Jaffé, Samson and Delilah: A Rubens Painting Returns, Milan 2007, pp. 11-17
2007

H. Van de Velde, 'The Painting Collection of Burgomaster Nicolaas Rockox (1560-1640). A Discussion of the Inventory Drawn up after his Death', in D. Jaffé, Samson and Delilah: A Rubens Painting Returns, Milan 2007, pp. 33-55
2007

J. Kräftner, 'The Rubens Collection of the Princes of Liechtenstein', in D. Jaffé, Samson and Delilah: A Rubens Painting Returns, Milan 2007, pp. 57-65
2009

G. Tonelli, Rubens's Massacre of the Innocents: The Thomson Collection at the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto 2009
2009

M. Neumeister, Alte Pinakothek: Flämische Malerei, Stuttgart 2009
2010

K. Krzyżagórska-Pisarek, '"Samson i Dalila" Rubensa. Problematyka atrybucji a polityka wystawiennicza muzeów', Rocznik historii sztuki, XXXV, 2010, pp. 189-211
2012

A. Vergara and F. Lammertse, The Young Van Dyck (exh. cat., Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid), Madrid 2012
2012

F. Vermeylen and K. De Clippel, 'Rubens and Goltzius in dialogue: Artistic exchanges between Antwerp and Haarlem during the Revolt', De Zeventiende Eeuw, XXVIII, 2012, pp. 139-60
2016

E. Bergvelt and M. Jonker, Dutch and Flemish Paintings: Dulwich Picture Gallery, London 2016
2018

F. Lammertse and A. Vergara, Rubens: Painter of Sketches, Madrid 2018
2019

S. Suda and K. Nickel (eds), Early Rubens, Munich 2019
2019

K. Nickel, 'Conflicting Visions', in S. Suda and K. Nickel (eds), Early Rubens, Munich 2019, pp. 26-39
2020

H.J. Meier, Die Kunst der Interpretation. Rubens und die Druckgraphik, Berlin and Munich 2020

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.

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The Horrors of War

After Peter Paul Rubens

Mars, the god of war, is presented with a choice. Should he continue his march into war, or should he show mercy and retreat? Figures representing the different qualities of war and peace surround him, encouraging him to follow their example. Alecto, one of the three goddesses of vengeance (known...

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