Samson, 1886

  • Elihu Vedder, American, 1836-1923

Oil on cradled wood panel

  • Unframed: 17 3/4 × 27 1/2 inches (45.1 × 69.9 cm)
  • 29 3/4 × 37 5/8 × 1 7/8 inches (75.6 × 95.6 × 4.8 cm)

Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Joseph Chazan, Arthur and Joyce Hurvitz, and Irwin and Gloria Sparr in honor of Mr. and Mrs. Richard A. Manoogian

1994.123

On View

  • American, Level 2, West

Department

American Art before 1950

Signed and dated, at lower right: Elihu Vedder | Rome 1876

Inscribed, lower left corner of painting, the artist's cypher: V; and hte date: 1886 Inscribed, lower left corner of frame, on a gold coin, the artists cypher: V; and the date: 1886 Inscribed, upper center of frame, in Hebrew letters, Samson And an unsigned entry: Inscribed, lower right: Elihu Vedder | Rome 1876 (This needs to be verified. I don't see it, Ken Myers, Curator of American Art, July 21, 2023)

Colonel J. G. Moore (New York, New York, USA). private collections. Graham Williford (New York, New York, USA). Jordan-Volpe Gallery (New York, New York, USA). 1994-present, gift to the Detroit Institute of Arts (Detroit, Michigan, USA)

“Art Notes.” Critic: A Weekly Review of Literature and the Arts 10, 7 (1887): p. 210. Catalogue of Vedder’s Phototypes. Exh. cat. New York, 1887, nos. 9-10. World’s Columbian Exposition. Exh. cat. Chicago, 1893, nos. 1035-1036. Goodyear, William H. Renaissance and Modern Art. New York, 1894, p. 303. Clement, Clara Erskine. “Later Religious Painting in America.” New England Magazine 12, 2 (April 1895): pp. 138-139. Lusk, Lewis. “The Later Work of Elihu Vedder.” Art Journal 55 (1903): pp. 142-146. Vedder, Elihu. The Digressions of V. 2 Vols. Boston, 1910, p. 485. Soria, Regina. Elihu Vedder: American Visionary Artist in Rome (1836-1923). Rutherford, NJ, 1970, pp. 331-332, nos. 431-432. American Expatriate Painters of the Late Nineteenth Century. Exh. cat., Dayton Art Institute. Dayton, OH, 1976, pp. 140-141, nos. 53-54. Perceptions and Evocations: The Art of Elihu Vedder. Exh. cat., National Collection of Fine Arts. Washington, D.C., 1979, pp. 150-151, nos. 185-186. All Walks of Life: Paintings of the Figure from the National Academy of Design. Exh. cat., National Academy of Design. New York, 1979, p. 83. Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Paintings. Exh. cat., Jordan-Volpe Gallery. 1989, pp. 10-13. Revisiting the White City: American Art at the 1893 World’s Fair. Exh. cat., National Museum of American Art. Washington, D.C., 1993, p. 337, nos. 1006-1007.

Elihu Vedder, Samson, 1886, oil on cradled wood panel. Detroit Institute of Arts, Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Joseph Chazan, Arthur and Joyce Hurvitz, and Irwin and Gloria Sparr, 1994.123.