A new book challenges the authenticity of Samson and Delilah, a painting attributed to Peter Paul Rubens and housed in London’s National Gallery. Art historian Euphrosyne Doxiadis claims the work is a 19th-century copy, reigniting a decades-long debate.
Gaudy colors, messy brushwork, even a set of missing toes—the debate about the authenticity of Rubens’s Samson and Delilah will be reignited next week with the release of a book alleging that the painting hanging in London’s National Gallery is actually a copy.
The work by the 17th-century Flemish master Peter Paul Rubens was purchased by the gallery in 1980 for £2.5 million ($3.1 million), then the second-highest price ever paid for a painting at auction.
Every year, tens of thousands of visitors view the piece, praised by the world-famous gallery for the artist’s use of "highly contrasting light and shade and deep, rich color work."
However, this view is not shared by Greek painter and art historian Euphrosyne Doxiadis, whose book NG6461: The Fake Rubens is set for release next week.
Although the National Gallery remains convinced of the painting’s authenticity, Doxiadis is adamant that it could not have been painted by Rubens.
"Rubens was meant to have painted a Samson and Delilah… but this painting in the National Gallery is certainly not it," she told AFP by telephone from Greece.
Based on the Old Testament story of the Israelite hero Samson, the painting depicts the moment an accomplice of his treacherous lover Delilah cuts off his hair, the source of his warrior power.
Rubens completed the canvas around 1609, but it mysteriously disappeared for nearly three centuries before resurfacing in Paris in 1929.
After changing hands multiple times, it was eventually resold to the National Gallery. Doxiadis, 78, said she "instantly" spotted problems with the painting when she first saw it four decades ago.
A 'Detective' Hunt
"In 1985, I was wandering around alone and I saw it. I thought it was just a bad copy that they had borrowed," she said. Doxiadis, who studied at London’s Slade School of Fine Art, said the painting’s "cartoonish" colors were the biggest red flag.
"Above all, it was the lack of color harmony. It was just gaudy… and the drawing and composition were totally out of sync," she said. "I also didn’t notice it at the time, but the foot of Samson is out of the picture—the toes are missing," she added. "It’s a joke!" Her theory is consistent with previously expressed doubts.
Contemporaneous reproductions show three soldiers in the doorway rather than the five seen in the National Gallery’s version.
Several years after she first laid eyes on Samson and Delilah, Doxiadis learned that, far from being an acknowledged copy, the painting had been acquired by the London institution for a vast sum. That discovery shocked her so much that she launched a 40-year "detective" investigation.
"When I started this whole research, I never thought I’d be lucky enough to find out who painted this copy, but I did," she said. Her findings point to the work of three different artists at the San Fernando Fine Art Royal Academy in Madrid.
‘Dictatorship of Experts’
"It had become one of the academy’s rules that students would create copies of old masters. This practice began in the early 19th century and continued until around 1910," she explained.
Doxiadis said the painting was not initially intended as a forgery. However, after it was sold in Paris in good faith, its new owner succeeded in having it "authenticated" by an expert, cementing its status as an original "masterpiece."
Publishers were reluctant to take on Doxiadis’s book, but the independent London-based Eris Press, distributed by Columbia University Press, eventually agreed to publish it.
"There’s a dictatorship of experts… Everyone was closing doors because they didn’t want to get involved with something so controversial." The publicly owned National Gallery has not responded to the book. However, it told AFP in a statement that the work had "long been accepted by leading Rubens scholars as a masterpiece by Peter Paul Rubens."
"A technical examination of the picture was presented in an article in the National Gallery’s Technical Bulletin in 1983. The findings remain valid," it added.
Doxiadis said she remained motivated by a sense of outrage on behalf of the artist and concern that the painting had been acquired using taxpayers’ money.
NG6461: The Fake Rubens, whose title refers to the painting’s inventory number, will be published on Wednesday.
With AFP
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