Title

Samson slaying a Philistine

Bologna, Giovanni da (Douai, ca. 1529 - Florencia, ca. 1608)

Generic classification

Object

Date

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Dimensions

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Inventory Number in Current Collection

Inscriptions / Marks

IO… BELGAE…

Object history

In 1601 the King of Spain, Philip III, at the behest of his favourite, the powerful Duke of Lerma, decided to change the seat of the Court from Madrid to Valladolid. Although this city saw the birth of Philip II and had often hosted kings since medieval times, it lacked a stable palace, so the Duke of Lerma strove to find a suitable location. To this end he bought the palace erected by the emperor's secretary Francisco de los Cobos, opposite the church of San Pablo, and several adjacent houses to form a suitable residence for the monarchy. The valido ended up making a great deal, as he sold his property to the king almost doubling what it had cost him. In addition to the palace, he had acquired an estate with a small palace on the right bank of the Pisuerga River, which became known as the Huerta del Duque, but the Duke also ended up selling it with everything that was inside to his sovereign in 1606, and the name changed to Huerta del Rey. The name honored its use, as it was an estate with abundant fruit trees and had a mansion, known as the Ribera, which the king used in summer as it was a cooler area being away from the city and benefiting from the proximity of the river.

In this recreational estate, although it was also used for agricultural purposes, the residence was decorated with paintings by Titian, Veronese, Antonio Moro..., which together with the one painted by Rubens -Equestrian Portrait of the Duke of Lerma, Madrid, Museo del Prado - during his stay in Valladolid in 1603, when he arrived as ambassador of the Duke of Mantua, made the place a real museum. But it was not only paintings; the garden around the building was embellished with fountains and sculptures. There were five fountains, including an exceptional work by Giambologna, depicting Samson slaying a Philistine. The commission was made by Francesco de Medici in 1560-1561 and the artist completed it in two years. The first known mention of the set was made by Vasari in Le Vite, 1568 edition in the notes on Giambologna: "...e quasi condotto a fine al signor Prencipe un Sansone, grande quanti il vivo, il quali combatte a piede con due Filistei...". Vasari made it clear that it was Samson, but he was wrong about the two Philistines, for there is only one. Borghini(Il Riposo, 1584) saw it installed in the Cortile dei Semplici, founded by Cosimo de Medici: "poi lauorò [Giambologna] nel Casino del Gran Duca Francesco la bellissima figura del marmo rapresentante Sansone cha ha sotto vn Filisteo, che è sopra la Fontana nel cortile, doue sono i smplici". Baldinucci at the end of the seventeenth century also echoes the work, "Ebbe Gio. Bologna per lo Casino del Granduca Francesco a scolpiere il gruppo del Sansone, che ha sotto il Filisteo; al quale fu dato luogogo sopra la Fontana del Cortile de' Semplici, ove fece ancora bellissime bizzarrie die mostri marini, que reggevano la tazza ", and goes on to punctuate his departure from Italy: "Quella fonte poi fu dal Granduca Ferdinando mandata in dono al Duca di Lelma [Lerma] in Ispagna...".

It remained in the family palace until Ferdinando I de Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, gave it to the Duke of Lerma in 1601. The Duke ordered it to be installed in the gardens of his villa in Valladolid and it remained there until 1623 when the Prince of Wales, passing through Valladolid on his way back to England after unsuccessful negotiations with Philip IV, saw it and liked it so much that it was given to him along with a painting by Veronese, since the Spanish entourage that accompanied him had instructions to attend to the prince's requests.

In the minutes of the order given by the entourage to the overseer of works, Jerónimo Angulo, it was said that it was a sculpture of Samson, but at the bottom it is corrected and states that it was Cain and Abel. The confusion is easy to understand because the upright figure brandishes a jaw with which he is going to strike a blow to his defeated opponent, but there is no doubt that it is Samson killing a Philistine. In fact, as soon as the Portuguese Pinheiro da Veiga moved in, he saw it placed in the then Huerta del Duque, in the middle of four other fountains there was "an alabaster fountain that the Duke [Lerma] ordered from the Duke of Florence, which has the figures of Cain and Abel, something so perfect that as if it were by Mirón or Policleto...".

The sculpture of Samson slaying the Philistine was sent to London and soon after the Prince of Wales gave it to the Duke of Buckingham, who in June 1624 had it installed in his garden at York House. At the beginning of the 18th century it was moved to Buckingham House. In 1762 King George III acquired the palace and at the same time the group was given by the king to Thomas Worsley, Inspector General of His Majesty's Board of Works, who moved the sculpture to Hovingham Hall in Yorkshire. In 1954 the Victoria & Albert Museum, with the support of the National Art-Collections Fund, acquired it for £25,000.

Description

The magnificent sculpture is made of marble, not alabaster, with considerable dimensions - more than two meters high - and shows an inscription "IO... BELGAE..." on the front of the strap that crosses Samson's torso from his left shoulder. (The artist, Jean Bologna, was born in 1529 in Douai, then included in the duchy of Burgundy, and the gentilicio refers to his belonging to the ancient Roman province of Gaul Belgium). The group is arranged in a spiral and shows several points of view, although the frontal one prevails, as his contemporary Benvenutto Cellini pointed out in the answer to the paragone between painting and sculpture proposed by Benedetto Varchi(Due lezzione...): "sculpture is seven times superior to painting because a work of sculpture must have eight views, and all must be equally good". A work typical of Mannerism, its expression is based on the twisting of the bodies and shows the virtuosity of the artist in all the details in search of the beauty of the forms.

Two drawings of the fountain in the Galleria degli Ufizzi include the cup, defined by large lobes that form a shell, and a square base with sea monsters on the vertices, which remain, and bronze sculptures of monkeys arranged on the four sides. These figures seem never to have reached Spain, as they were removed at the end of the 16th century. Charles, Prince of Wales, took only the sculpture while the rest remained in its location until 1653 when the king ordered its transfer to the palace of El Pardo. Although an unfavorable report was issued because the cup was very broken since its arrival in Valladolid, something that must have made the English heir desist from taking the whole set, Philip IV did not change his mind, although the base and the cup, restored, were eventually installed in the Gardens of Aranjuez, where it remains today integrating the so-called Fountain of Bacchus, for having placed a sculpture of that god, work of the Flemish Jacques Jongelinck, from around 1570, replacing the original by Giambologna.

Locations

• ca. 1601 - ca. 1623

  palace

  Ribera Palace, Valladolid (Spain)

• ca. 1623 - ca. 1624

  private collection

  Charles I of England, London (United Kingdom) *

• ca. 1624 - Early XVIII^th c.

  private collection

  George Villiers, London (United Kingdom) *

• Early XVIII^th c. - ca. 1762

  palace

  Buckingham House, London (United Kingdom)

• ca. 1762

  private collection

  Thomas Worsley, Hovingham (United Kingdom) *

• ca. 1954 - present

  museum

  Victoria & Albert Museum, London (United Kingdom)