Dual purpose

Samson and Lion Aquamanile

Northern Germany [Hildesheim?], Mid-13th to early 14th century
Leaded Latten
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Benjamin Shelton Fund, 40.233

no. 1

Used for water to wash hands either during Mass (sacred) or in domestic (secular) settings between the eleventh and fifteenth centuries, aquamanilia take many forms, both fantastic and real, of which the lion is the most common. Among the finest preserved, the present example showing Samson and the lion has few parallels. This is surprising given the popularity of the Old Testament subject (Judges 14:5-6) in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries—an incident interpreted as the prefiguration of Christ’s conquest of the devil.

The rivalry is clear between man and lion, two figures at the top of their respective hierarchies. They may share courage, physical prowess, even ferocity, but, as Richard de Fournival points out in his thirteenth-century Bestiary of Love, man created in the image of God retains the edge over his lion counterpart. This is certainly true when Samson, moved by the Holy Spirit, attacks more ferociously than the beast he literally tears from limb to limb. The elegantly clothed Samson here jumps on the lion’s back, grabs its jaw, and uses all his force to twist the lion’s head around.

The lion is traditionally a symbol of strength, but here, Samson’s divinely inspired force has already overcome the lion’s muscular resistance and reduced his ferocity to the glassy stare of death. Given its unwieldy weight and awkward small spout and handle, this aquamanile was probably used more for display than for washing hands, all the better to allow admiring viewers to follow the drama enacted.