3-102-273 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

'Samson Threatening His Father-In-Law', 1635, (1967). Biblical scene: Samson, wearing a rich damask coat with a sword at his waist, clenches his fist in powerless fury at this father-in-law, who looks dazedly down from the window. Judges 15:1 says: "But it came to pass within a while after, in the time of the wheat harvest, that Samson visited his wife with a kid; and he said, I will go in to my wife into the chamber. But her father would not suffer him to go in," having given his daughter to another man. Why Rembrandt gave Samson his own facial features is not clear. Painting in the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin. From "Rembrandt" by Ludwig Münz and Bob Haak, [Harry N. Abrams, Inc., New York, 1967]