Samson and Delilah

Guercino painted this in 1654, near the end of a long career, for Charles II, the Duke of Mantua, as one of a pair. Look at who is holding the shears. In the Book of Judges, Samson's hair is cut by a man that Delilah calls in while he sleeps. Here Delilah does it herself, leaning in over his lap with the blade. That version comes not from the Bible but from the Jewish historian Josephus, writing in the first century, whose retelling was well known to educated patrons of Guercino's day. The old strongman sleeps on, unaware that the source of his strength is about to fall away, while the Philistine soldiers wait in the shadows behind.