QUESTIONS OF AUTHORITY: A LETTER TO THE OBSERVER

Last weekend The Observer ran a story about a groundbreaking new AI analysis of the ‘Samson and Delilah’, which has shed new light on this decades-old controversy.

Today the newspaper has published our response. In a letter to the editor (copied below), Euphrosyne Doxiadis, whose research underpins much of the content on this website, sets out why the new study makes the need for a public debate about the painting more urgent than ever:

It came as no surprise to me that new computer analysis of the National Gallery’s prized Samson and Delilah shows a 91% probability that it is not actually by Rubens (“Was famed Samson and Delilah really painted by Rubens? No, says AI”, News). As far back as 1992, with fellow artists Steve Harvey and Sian Hopkinson, I submitted a report to the gallery laying out clear stylistic, technical and documentary evidence against the painting. This report is available, along with a new video summarising the case, at www.inRubensName.org.

Our research then and subsequently has been sidelined and often ridiculed. The National Gallery has too often fallen back on the authority of a small group of Rubens experts, while ignoring the common-sense evidence in plain sight. Surely there can now be little doubt that this contentious work, bought for a record sum by the gallery with public money, was a costly mistake. But after three decades of obfuscation, what is really at stake here is the credibility of the art establishment as a whole.

In 1997, the gallery promised to arrange a public debate on this painting. There is an opportunity now for them to finally deliver on that promise, with the openness and transparency we expect from all our public institutions.

Euphrosyne Doxiadis
Athens