The Sacrifice of Manoah and His Wife, Parents of Samson

The story of Manoah and his wife comes from the Book of Judges: an angel appears to the childless couple and foretells the birth of Samson, who will deliver Israel from Philistine oppression. When the couple offer a burnt sacrifice, the angel ascends in the flame and reveals his divine nature. Painted in 1690 and now in the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth, this canvas reflects the sustained seventeenth-century interest in Old Testament narrative as a vehicle for exploring divine presence and human faith. Noël Coypel frequently treated religious subjects alongside mythological ones, treating both with the same academic gravitas. The Annunciation-like structure of the Manoah story — a divine messenger, a miraculous conception, a chosen deliverer — made it a natural counterpart to New Testament iconography, and its dramatic possibilities, with the ascending angel and the astonished witnesses, suited the Baroque preference for suspended, revelatory moments.

The ascending angel provides a natural vertical axis, with flame and drapery creating upward movement counterpointed by the prostrate figures below. Coypel modulates light carefully, using the sacrificial fire as a secondary source that warms the foreground while cooler celestial illumination bathes the angel, distinguishing the earthly from the divine.