afterRubens.org poses the question: is the National Gallery's Samson and Delilah really by Rubens?

Thursday, October 20, 2005

afterRubens.org today launches an interactive website that brings together 13 years of painstaking research and features previously unseen side-by-side comparisons with undisputed Rubens works, in order to question the official attribution of the National Gallery’s “highlight painting” Samson and Delilah.

In 1609-10 Rubens painted his Samson and Delilah. In 1980 the National Gallery paid a near record sum for what they believed to be the same painting.

Since the 1990s a circle of artists and scholars have challenged the painting’s authenticity on three counts: Its composition contradicts 17 th century copies of the original; Its style is out of step with Rubens’ work; And its provenance is uncertain.

AfterRubens.org now brings that evidence into the public domain, enabling people to make up their own mind about a work that is central to next week’s “A Master in the Making” exhibition at the National Gallery.