Part 11.
The Victoria and Albert Musem Marble Group of Samson slaying the Philistine.
by Giambologna.
1562.
Created
around 1562 by Giambologna, the earliest of his marble groups which was originally
commissioned by Francesco de' Medici Duke of Tuscany for a fountain in
Florence, it was later gifted to Spain's Duke of Lerma and displayed in the
gardens of the Palacio de la Ribera, Valladolid. Perhaps symbolizing the political
power of the Medici through a dramatic biblical scene.
Giambologna’s
Samson Group was gifted to the Prince of Wales, later King Charles I in 1623.
Samson
Slaying a Philistine had served twice as a diplomatic gift. In 1601 it was sent
to Spain as a present from the Medici to the Duke of Lerma, Philip III’s
chief-minister, and then, in 1623, given by Philip IV to the Prince of Wales
(later Charles I) who was visiting Spain in prospect of marriage.
As a
contemporary Spanish account published in England in translation soon after
puts it: “hee was much delighted with…the Alabaster Fountaine, which the
Illustrious great Duke of Tuscan gave to my Lord Cardinall, the Duke of Lerma;
he was served [presented] with it: It is the portraiture
of Cain and Abel.”
Thus it is clear that the statue still at this
time formed the centrepiece of a fountain, and not an item to be viewed in
isolation. Moreover, from this we know it had already become identified with
the wrong Old Testament story. It cost the Privy Purse £40 to have the statue –
less the fountain base which remained in Spain and is now in Aranjuez – carted
to Santander.
Charles, in
turn, gave the statue to his favourite George Villiers, the Duke of Buckingham,
who had accompanied him in Spain and who subsequently installed it at York
House, London, by June the following year.
In June 1624
Sir Thomas Wentworth, the future Lord Strafford, described it in a letter: “a
goodly Statue of Stone set up in the Garden before the new Building, bigger than
the Life, of a Sampson with a Philistine betwixt his
Legs, knocking his Brains out with the Jaw-Bone of an Ass.” Wentworth was perceptive enough to recognise
the true subject of the statue.
By 1714 Villiers
had the group moved to Buckingham House which was acquired by George III in
1762, and was finally given as a gift by the Hanoverian king to his
Surveyor-General, Thomas Worsley (1710-78) of Hovingham Hall. It remained in
Yorkshire until 1954, when it was purchased by the V&A.
In 1883 it
was still at Hovingham Hall, Yorks, the Country seat Sir William Worseley to
whose grandfather it had been presented by George III (info from Historical
Handbook of Italian Sculpture by Charles Callahan Perkins – pub 1883) - Page
339.
The marble is mentioned again in English
Leadwork by Lawrence Weaver pub 1909 (page 166) –
Available
online at –
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc2.ark:/13960/t7fr05c48&seq=11
or https://archive.org/details/b3136665x
Weaver goes on to mention lead versions of Samson slaying the Philistine at Chiswick (this is the Osgood version subsequently moved to Chatsworth), Harrowden Hall, Wimpole Hall and Drayton House, but he erroneously suggests that the Drayton group was modelled by Peter Scheemakers. As far as I am aware Scheemakers did not work in lead except for providing the Equestrian statue at Hull which would have been probably made in collaboration.
https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O14761/samson-slaying-a-philistine-figure-group-bologna-giovanni/
Drawing of the Samson Slaying the Philistine attributed to Giambologna in the Prado, Madrid.
The original concept.
........................................
Pietro Francavilla (1548 - 1612).
The 3 Drawings at the V and A.
