Simon De Vos (1603-1676) - The Samson Arrest

Expert: René Millet.
We thank Professors Jan de Maere and Joost van der Auwera for confirming the award from photographs.

Our painting describes an episode in the Old Testament in which Dalila betrays Sanson.
She shaved her seven braids. In doing so, she deprived him of his Herculean strength and so gave it to the Philistines to burn his eyes.
Symbol of the temptress woman Dalila is represented naked and seems a priori very satisfied with her triumph.
Until now, there were two well-known canvases of this scene in this configuration: that of Rubens and that of van Dick. Our painting is the third.
Everything is power in this work. The visual impact is striking as to the rendering of the expressions it is amazing. The movements, the opposition between forces desired or undergone, and the sweet pleasure of a satisfied Delilah, almost astonished at his success, all in a calculated sobriety which reinforces the effect.

Simon De Vos (antwerp 1603 - 1676).

A sensitive artist between a late Mannerism and Rubens' sensual Baroque, Simon de Vos illustrated himself in an original way, nourished by these two important pictorial currents. At first he was the portrait painter Cornelis de Vos in Antwerp (with whom he was not related at all), but he gradually detached himself from the genre to engage in history painting. The Hermitage thus preserves four of its Old Testament brass instruments, similar to our canvas in this golden Rubenian palette, but also in smaller formats than our spectacular composition.

Status Report

Rentoilage dating from fifty years having slightly flattened the pictorial layer.
Very nice general state.
Small restorations visible on the whole picture and in the details of faces of some characters of the bottom.