REMBRANDT Harmenszoon van Rijn
(b. 1606, Leiden, d. 1669, Amsterdam)

Samson Accusing his Father-in-Law

1635
Oil on canvas, 159 x 131 cm
Staatliche Museen, Berlin

Catalogue number: Bredius 499.

In terms of physiognomy, Samson is almost a Rembrandt look-alike. Enraged, he shakes a fist at his Philistine father-in-law, furious that his promised bride was given to someone else. This rhetorical, all-too-obvious image suited the artist's early love for extremes of gesture. Samson's image is invested with the costly Near Eastern armour and textiles Rembrandt collected at disastrous expense, employing their presence to add a documentary character to his biblical and classical subjects.