Samson and Delilah

After Nicolò Boldrini
Italy
c.1500, active c.1530 - 70

after Tiziano Vecellio called Titian
Italy
c.1485-90 – 1576

Samson and Delilah
c.1540-45
woodcut on paper
Place made
Venice, Italy
Medium
woodcut on paper
Dimensions
31.4 x 51.0 cm (image & sheet)
Credit line
Bequest of David Murray 1908
Accession number
084G1955
Signature and date
Not signed. Not dated.
Catalogue raisonne
Rosand & Muraro (1976) 39
Media category
Print
Collection area
European prints

  • WALL LABEL: A Beautiful Line: Italian prints from Mantegna to Piranesi, 2012

     

    This dynamic composition depicts an incident from the Old Testament story of Samson and Delilah, as related in the Book of Judges (7–16). Samson, one of the Judges of Israel and who was endowed with great strength, was finally captured by the Philistines with the help of the deceitful Delilah. Seduced by Delilah’s beauty, Samson revealed to her that the secret of his strength lay in his long hair. Titian depicts the moment when Delilah’s maid has shorn Samson’s hair, and with it destroyed his strength. Soldiers rush to subdue the once fearsome Samson, ready to bind his arms. Titian’s treatment invests the subject with a potent energy, conveying the uncoiling of violence following Delilah’s betrayal.

     

    Maria Zagala, Associate Curator of Prints, Drawings & Photographs

  • Inspired Design: Love & Death

    Art Gallery of South Australia, 18 November 2011 – 19 February 2012

  • A beautiful line. Italian prints from Mantegna to Piranesi

    Art Gallery of South Australia, 20 August 2010 – 31 October 2010
  • [Book] Rosand, David, Muraro, Michelangelo. Titian and the Venetian Woodcut.
  • [Book] Watanabe, Shinsuke. Italian Renaissance Prints from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich.
  • [Book] Matile, Michael. Italienische Holzschnitte der Renaissance und des Barock.
  • [Book] Zagala, Maria. A Beautiful Line : Italian prints from Mantegna to Piranesi.