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Lot Essay
Nothing is known of K. Pavlik beyond this large and ambitious Samson and Delilah with its date line of Prague, 1889; but the painting's grand style and its well-known, albeit seldom painted theme suggest that this (probably) Czech painter had a serious connection to the art world of Paris in the 1880's. If he did not train there, he nonetheless absorbed its lessons from afar.
The Samson story is taken from the Biblical Book of Judges which tells of an extraordinarily strong young man who was ordained by birth to begin the delivery of the Israelites from the dominance of the Philistines. Brought down by a woman, Delilah, who has deceived him, Samson rose from defeat by sheer faith in God to bring death and destruction upon those who had tried to vanquish him. Samson's superhuman strength was a gift from God in recognition of his parents' faith, and that strength was embedded in his symbolically never-cut locks. After squandering his powers in needless battles with various Philistine powers, Samson was seduced by Delilah, to whom Samson's enemies had offered a fortune in silver if she could obtain the secret of his strength. When Samson finally confided that it was his hair that held the power, Delilah lulled him to sleep and summoned the lords of the Philistines that they might shave Samson's locks and safely seize him. (Pavlik has followed a more popular version of the Biblical story, in which Delilah herself cut the heir of the sleeping hero). After the enfeebled Samson was captured, humiliated and mocked, he prayed to God to renew his strength. In vengenance and shame he brought down the walls of the Philistine's temple upon thousand of their number, killing himself as well.
The most widely known illustration of the Samson tale is the monumental painting by Rubens now in the National Gallery, London, which presents the hero and his seductress in stylized European dress. Pavlik's interprestation sets the scene in a Middle-eastern interior, with a glimpse of a Jerusaleum-like city beyond. He clothed his Samson, Delilah and the hesitant captors in costumes culled from picture books of the Ottoman Empire, and the beautifully rendered tapestries, rugs and vessels are probably based on examples that were available in the marketplaces of Prague. In emphasizing these elements, Pavlik followed a movement begun some decades earlier by Horace Vernet to recast the great Biblical images in a more realistically studied Middle East -- one aspect of the Orientalist movement that swept through European studios in the second half of the nineteenth-century. The broad composition of Pavlik's Samson and Delilah with the half nude, beautifully muscled Samson stretched across the foreground and his enemies entering from the left middleground is based upon Cabanel's Le Paradis Perdu a grand scale history painting commissioned by King Ludwig of Bavaria in 1867 and probably the most closely studied painting in Germany and eastern Europe during the last quarter of the nineteenth-century.
We are grateful to Alexandra Murphy for the preparation of this catalogue entry.
This lot may be tax exempt as set forth in the conditions of sale.
The Samson story is taken from the Biblical Book of Judges which tells of an extraordinarily strong young man who was ordained by birth to begin the delivery of the Israelites from the dominance of the Philistines. Brought down by a woman, Delilah, who has deceived him, Samson rose from defeat by sheer faith in God to bring death and destruction upon those who had tried to vanquish him. Samson's superhuman strength was a gift from God in recognition of his parents' faith, and that strength was embedded in his symbolically never-cut locks. After squandering his powers in needless battles with various Philistine powers, Samson was seduced by Delilah, to whom Samson's enemies had offered a fortune in silver if she could obtain the secret of his strength. When Samson finally confided that it was his hair that held the power, Delilah lulled him to sleep and summoned the lords of the Philistines that they might shave Samson's locks and safely seize him. (Pavlik has followed a more popular version of the Biblical story, in which Delilah herself cut the heir of the sleeping hero). After the enfeebled Samson was captured, humiliated and mocked, he prayed to God to renew his strength. In vengenance and shame he brought down the walls of the Philistine's temple upon thousand of their number, killing himself as well.
The most widely known illustration of the Samson tale is the monumental painting by Rubens now in the National Gallery, London, which presents the hero and his seductress in stylized European dress. Pavlik's interprestation sets the scene in a Middle-eastern interior, with a glimpse of a Jerusaleum-like city beyond. He clothed his Samson, Delilah and the hesitant captors in costumes culled from picture books of the Ottoman Empire, and the beautifully rendered tapestries, rugs and vessels are probably based on examples that were available in the marketplaces of Prague. In emphasizing these elements, Pavlik followed a movement begun some decades earlier by Horace Vernet to recast the great Biblical images in a more realistically studied Middle East -- one aspect of the Orientalist movement that swept through European studios in the second half of the nineteenth-century. The broad composition of Pavlik's Samson and Delilah with the half nude, beautifully muscled Samson stretched across the foreground and his enemies entering from the left middleground is based upon Cabanel's Le Paradis Perdu a grand scale history painting commissioned by King Ludwig of Bavaria in 1867 and probably the most closely studied painting in Germany and eastern Europe during the last quarter of the nineteenth-century.
We are grateful to Alexandra Murphy for the preparation of this catalogue entry.
This lot may be tax exempt as set forth in the conditions of sale.