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| Rembrandt The Blinding of Samson 1636 oil on canvas Städel Museum, Frankfurt |
The Bedroom-Cavern
Delilah is "a woman in the valley of Sorek," we read in the Book of Judges. "And the lords of the Philistines came up unto her, and said unto her, Entice him, and see wherein his great strength lieth, and by what means we may prevail against him, that we may bind him to afflict him; and we will give thee every one of us eleven hundred pieces of silver." We are not told whether or not Delilah was a Philistine. When she had handed Samson over to the lords, they "brought him down to Gaza" in Palestine. It was, then, among these hills that the drama occurred, not only in Delilah's house, but in her bedroom. For Rembrandt, it is even in her bed – a sumptuous alcove, offering shadowy hiding places capacious enough to conceal the attackers. A nocturnal theater-scene, half-enclosed by thick sea-green curtains swept into studded tie-backs, evoking a marine grotto. Coverlet, hangings, the whole tangle of bedclothes heave under light and shadow, like waves.
The three Philistines who restrain Samson are accoutered like the mercenary brigands to be encountered everywhere during the Thirty Years' War. The one sprawled on the ground below the victim is losing his helmet, held on by only one fastening. The dagger-wielder is entirely sheathed in fine metalwork. Chaining the victim's wrist, the third is positioned so as to display quantities of gold trim and brocaded edgings. The two remaining Philistines are decked out à la turque, especially the one in red with baggy striped bloomers, but the other also, with more stripes and a prominent plume. Lastly, the crucial dagger, actively thrust into the eye, features a blade as elaborately rippled as a Malayan kriss.
Delilah is armed with scissors. Only Samson is completely disarmed. Scarcely dressed, he kicks upward, wielding his raised foot like a cudgel. With his right hand he grabs at something we can only interpret as part of the upturned bedding, but which will suggest for the believer versed in sacred history the archetypal weapon associated with Samson, the fresh jawbone of an ass with which he beat down a thousand Philistines. Yet it was with naked hands that he annihilated the lion as if it were a lamb. And it is with naked hands alone, once his hair has regrown, that he will pull down the temple of Dagon, one of the chief gods of the region, represented in a form half man, half fish.
Rembrandt's Three Women
At the period of this picture, the painter was in love with his new wife, Saskia van Uylenburgh, whom he had married in June 1634 and who died on 19 June 1642. We know that she was from a prosperous but humble family, her father working as a miller. The marriage was viewed as a misalliance, with Saskia's class-origins well below Rembrandt's.
After her death, the artist hired a nurse, Geertje Dircx, widow of naval trumpeter, to care for his son Titus, born in 1641. She lived in the household from 1643 to 1648. He then dismissed her, accusing her not only of lewd conduct, but with having sold to a pawnbroker the jewels and ornaments he had entrusted to her and which had belonged to Saskia. Geertje retaliated by suing Rembrandt for breach of promise. Ordered by the tribunal to pay her a pension, the painter succeeded after some years in having her committed as a madwoman to the prison in Gouda.
About 1649 Hendrickje Stoffels entered Rembrandt's service, remaining with him until her death and routinely posing in the studio.
His only legal wife, then, was Saskia, whom the artist painted and drew obsessively, often with the same jewels as those worn by Delilah, a figure evidently modeled on Saskia. The Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden displays a matrimonial double portrait in which the young bride wearing these jewels is seated on the knees of her husband, who has donned a costume of levantine military finery and brandishes a tall beaker of wine.
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| Rembrandt Marriage Portrait of Rembrandt and Saskia in the guise of the Prodigal Son 1635 oil on canvas Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden |
The Purse
On the curtain-covered sideboard against the left wall of Delilah's chamber, held down by a golden jug, there is a looped blue object overhanging the edge which can be identified as a silk purse. It surely contains silver brought by the Philistines to pay for the betrayal. All the same, it is too small to contain the entire amount, eleven hundred shekels. At five shekels to the ounce, eleven hundred would weigh almost fifteen pounds. Perhaps the purse contains a supplementary gift, a sort of tip.
At this period Rembrandt was a relatively rich and famous painter, but Saskia's fortune was a good deal better assured than his. In her will, Saskia left everything to their son Titus, only a year old when she died, giving Rembrandt access to the income, but on condition that he not remarry, a provision that partly explains his subsequent conduct.
Four years after Saskia's death, the artist's financial situation had become so worrisome that his parents-in-law instituted a lawsuit. Plainly a spendthrift, Rembrandt was threatened with a court-appointed conservator – as later was Baudelaire – an episode leading one to surmise that his relations with his parents-in-law had always been difficult. He continued to struggle with creditors for the rest of his life.
Temptations
In the Book of Judges, Samson is a "Nazarite" – such individuals were consecrated to God and were forbidden to cut their hair, which in Samson's case was the source of his prodigious strength. Indulging in wine to drunkenness was also proscribed, lest it obstruct the reception of divine inspiration. Likewise, the temptation to pursue women was severely discouraged: one surmises that Delilah encouraged drinking so that Samson would sleep soundly. In the opera by Saint-Saëns she sings him to sleep. Rembrandt has taken the wine he was drinking with Saskia in the Dresden painting and hidden it in the curiously-worked golden jug with its cover on the sideboard in Delilah's boudoir. Partly concealed behind the jug is a goblet, also gold.
– translated and adapted from Le Musée imaginaire de Michel Butor: 105 œuvres décisives de la peinture occidentale (Paris: Flammarion, 2019)