Public collection via the Cleveland Museum of Art
AT-00009193Samson and Delilah
About the Artwork
In retaliation for Samson’s single-handed decimation of their army, the Philistines bribed his lover Delilah to discover the source of his strength: his hair, uncut since birth. Samson’s hair was shorn as he lay sleeping in Delilah’s lap, draining his strength and allowing the Philistines to capture him. Honthorst intensified the inherent drama of the scene by limiting his depiction to just three closely packed figures, starkly illuminated by a single candle. The old woman’s silencing gesture involves the viewer in the action, making us complicit in Delilah’s deceit.
Provenance
after 1621–at least 1701: Possibly Marchése Tommaso Raggi (1595/6–1676), Genoa and Rome, and descendants before 1967: [possibly] in the collection of the Ruspoli family, Rome, until sold to an art dealer until 1967: (Dealer, Rome, sold to the Hazlitt Gallery) 9 March 1968: (Hazlitt Gallery, London, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art) 1968–present: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio
Exhibition history
Year in Review for 1968. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 29-March 9, 1969). Dutch Art and Life in the Seventeenth Century. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (July 10-September 2, 1973). Sinners and Saints, Darkness and Light: Caravaggio and His Dutch and Flemish Followers. North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, NC (organizer) (September 29-December 13, 1998); Milwaukee Art Museum (January 29-April 18, 1999); Dayton Art Institute, Dayton, OH (May 8-July 18, 1999). The Genius of Rome, 1592-1623. Royal Academy of Arts, London, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (organizer) (January 20-April 16, 2001); Museo Nazionale del Palazzo di Venezia, Rome, Italy (May 2-July 31, 2001). Masterpieces of European Painting from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage, Beachwood, OH (March 29-July 8, 2007). Le Caravagisme Européen. Musée des Augustins, Toulouse, France (organizer) (June 22-October 14, 2012). Bodies and Shadows: Caravaggio and His Legacy. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA (organizer) (November 11, 2012-February 10, 2013). Gherardo delle Notti. Galleria degli Uffizi, Firenze, Italy (organizer) (February 10-May 24, 2015).
Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Quick Overview
- Artist
- Gerrit van Honthorst (Dutch, 1590–1656)
- Date
- c. 1616
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- Framed: 158.4 x 122.5 x 11.8 cm (62 3/8 x 48 1/4 x 4 5/8 in.); Case: 139.7 x 177.8 x 28 cm (55 x 70 x 11 in.); Unframed: 129 x 94 cm (50 13/16 x 37 in.)
- Type
- Painting
- Classification
- Painting
- Department
- European Painting and Sculpture
- Credit line
- Mr. and Mrs. William H. Marlatt Fund
- Accession no.
- 1968.23
More by Gerrit van Honthorst in museum collections
Open-access museum record · AT-00009193
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