Sansão e Dalila

Van Dyck was still a teenager working in Rubens's Antwerp studio when he took on this subject, around 1618 to 1620. His master had already painted his own celebrated Samson and Delilah, and this looks very much like a young prodigy answering it. Van Dyck borrows the pose, the sleeping strongman collapsed across Delilah's lap, but changes the timing. Rubens had shown the haircut already underway. Van Dyck holds the moment just before, with Delilah raising a finger to hush the room while the soldier creeps in with his shears. For a long time this canvas too was catalogued as a Rubens, and only in the 19th century was it handed back to the pupil who painted it.