Samson et Dalila

Van Dyck painted this around 1630, still in his thirties and still visibly the pupil of Rubens, in whose Antwerp workshop he had trained. He takes the biblical moment when soldiers rush in to seize the strongman Samson, whose hair, the secret of his strength, Delilah has just had cut while he slept in her lap. Rubens had shown the same scene with Delilah as a cool, knowing temptress. Van Dyck changes her completely. His Delilah recoils, reaching after Samson with a look close to horror, as though the betrayal has struck her only now that it is done. The deep glowing colour, warm reds against shadow, comes from the years Van Dyck had just spent studying Titian in Italy.