
55K likes, 156 comments - buffalonickelco on May 23, 2024: "Me most days—& it hasn’t me proved me wrong yet. Granted I’ve never actually wrestled an alligator. #vintagestyle #americana #handdrawntype #illustration #typegang #buffalonickelco".

Art of Samson and other historic or mythological figures drugging their pets.
TBH, this is an excuse to dig through art archives and find neat works of art to post that are vaguely related to the topic.
Nick Stroia on Instagram: "Me most days—& it hasn’t me proved me wrong yet. Granted I’ve never actually wrestled an alligator.
55K likes, 156 comments - buffalonickelco on May 23, 2024: "Me most days—& it hasn’t me proved me wrong yet. Granted I’ve never actually wrestled an alligator. #vintagestyle #americana #handdrawntype #illustration #typegang #buffalonickelco".
Samson shoving a lion in the face. Woodblock print. Thomas Bewick. ca 1785
Woodblock print of a grumpy-faced man in a tunic shoving a lion in the face. The lion's head is turned towards the viewer and he has a goofy look on his face. His tail is held high. The man holds a club in his left hand. Surrounding the lion and man is a tree, an embankment, and foliage.
Found at: The British Museum
"Daikyokuba" (English: "Big Circus"). Japanese print. ca 1871.
Image description: Japanese print with orange background. Print shows various circus performers, including people interacting with horses, an elephant on a barrel, a man standing on a tiger holding a second tiger's mouth open and a third tiger resting on his arm, clowns tumbling, acrobats, and horses on a teeter-totter.
Found at: Library of Congress
Hercules and the Nemean Lion. Paul Manship. 19?4 (prior to 1965)
Image description: metal statue of a man wrestling with a lion.
Found at The Smithsonian.
"Swallowed by a Wolf". Jessie Oonark. 1970
I post a lot of pre-modern-era art from European artists. So, I thought I'd mix it up a bit with this work by Inuit artist Jessie Oonark.
Image description: Work is on paper. Forms are defined by bold swatches of color. The main figure is a side profile of the green head of a wolf, with brown eye and an open mouth filled with point black teeth. In the mouth of the wolf is a man. His purple-brown legs stick out of the wolf's mouth. His torso is visible through the wolf's mouth as a white man-shape. A smaller animal's head--maybe another wolf-- is defined by an orange outline. The orange animal has its nose touching the throat of the green wolf. Its teeth are also showing. Below the artwork is the title, caption, and signature of the artist.
Found at: Montreal Museum of Fine Arts
Always look a gift horse in the mouth. Magazine cover. 1909
Image description: a white-haired man in a blue coat with stars on it and red/white striped pants (Uncle Sam) looks inside a horse's mouth while a man in a white coat looks on. The white coat man is labeled Aldritch. The horse is labeled "Central Bank". The horse's teeth are labeled "Wall Street Interests".
Found at: Library of Congress
"Lion tamer". ca 1873.
Image Description: a man with a very large, dark moustache stands in a cage surrounded by 3 lions and 2 tigers. The man stares straight at the viewer. The man wears what looks like plate mail on his torso, with fancy gold shoulder thingies, red sleaves, a short red skirt, white tights, and fancy bejeweled boots. His hat is red with a blue feather. The big cats are all in fierce poses. A maned lion stands with his paws on the man's shoulder. The man holds open the other maned lion's mouth.
Found at: Library of Congress
“When It Comes to the Lion, Business Between Ben and Jim, It’s Nip and Tuck”. Political cartoon. Thomas Nast. 1884.
Image description: etched political cartoon. A lion is on a wheeled pedestal labeled "British". A man in a suit and befeathered top hat twists the lion's tail. A bald man in a suit twists its head. The lion's mouth is open. Behind the men and lion is a storefront labeled "furs". A man watched open-mouthed through the window. Next to the cartoon is a colored registry thingy, for calibrating colors.
A detailed explanation of the cartoon is at HarpWeek (and TBH their image of the cartoon is clearer than the one I uploaded. I chose the LOC one because the permissions were clearer). In summary: In American politics, the Republican presidential nominee and the Greenback-Labor nominee were both critical of Great Britain (represented by the lion).
Found at: Library of Congress
Samson and the Lion. Woodblock. ca 1498
Image description: woodblock carved into the form of the Biblical Samson holding open a lion's mouth. The carving is fine and the wood is dark with the ink used in printmaking.
This is the woodblock used to make prints similar to the one previously posted, https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/892435 .
Found at: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/336211
marginalia of Samson and the Lion. 1254
Image description: 2-column handwritten text. Small doodle of Samson holding open a lion's mouth, in the upper right corner.
Found at: https://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlineex/illmanus/roymanucoll/m/011roy000001b12u00080000.html
Samson opening the lion's mouth
Image description: statue of Samson attempting to open the mouth of a lion whose mouth is firmly shut.
Samson and the Lion. Candlestick. ca 1850-1900
Image description: black metal candlestick. Samson sits on top of a lion and holds its mouth open. A column to hold a candle comes out of his back.
Found at: Candlestick: Samson and the Lion - Rijksmuseum, Netherlands - Public Domain. https://www.europeana.eu/item/90402/BK_16915
Hercules and the Nemean Lion. Ceiling of King's Inner Chamber, Stirling Castle
The first of his twelve labours. On the ceiling of the King's Inner Chamber, Stirling Castle.
Image description: Image is straight up at a ceiling. There is a center circular medallion with a naked man sitting on a lion. The man is holding the lion's mouth open. There are two other lions partly in frame--one left and one right of the scene. Around the circle is gold and red braid. Outside of the circle are filigree decorations. Overall colors are red, white, blue, gold.
Found at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/dun_deagh/7274023374/
Samson and the Lion. Oven tile. ca 1490.
Image description: Item is an unglazed terra cotta tire. It looks a bit dirty or sooty, but is clearly still yellow-tan. It depicts a 3d scene of a man with long hair, a hat with big feather, and tunic. The man is sitting on a lion and holding open a lion's mouth. Behind the man and lion is a stone (or brick) wall about waist high. Above it is an archway. Outside the archway is a floral decoration.
Found at: Met Museum___
Samson and the Lion. Cup made out of coconut. Hans van Amsterdam. 1533/34
According the the Met Museum, coconuts were exotic to Europeans and a cup made from a coconut could be used to neutralize poisons.
Image description: Tall silver and coconut goblet with lid. The bowl is made of most of a coconut, the base, stand, and lid of the goblet are made of silver. The coconut is engraved with biblical scenes, including Samson holding open a lion's mouth. Cherubs look on and there's filigree. There are also silver rams and roman? soldiers connecting the silver base and the top of the goblet.
Found at: The Met
Photograph of statue "Samson and the Lion". 1939 NY World's Fair.
Image description: a statue of Samson (with stylized hair in coils?) holding a lion by its lower jaw and its tail. The lion is suspended in the air. Image is black and white photograph. In the background is a flag with a spoked wheel on it.
Note: statue was in the "transportation" area of the NY World's Fair, in front of the Ford building. Other flags included air planes, propellers.
Related images: NYPL: scrapbook page of the fair (where you get a better view of the flag in the background--them emblem is a wheel, not the swastika I worried it was)
[NYPL--image of lady in 1930s garb standing on the statue. The statue is huge.](https://digitalco
"Feeding the Cubs". Oil on canvas. Paul Meyerheim. ca 1890.
Image description: Oil painting framed in an ornate floral frame. The painting is of a black-haired woman sitting on a wooden travel trunk or bench. Next to her is a lion cub. Another cub is cradled in the woman's lap and she bottle-feeds it. In the background there is a cage on wheeled (like for an old-timey traveling circus) with three adult lions in it--2 female and 1 male. The adult lions are watching the cubs. On the ground nearby is a black metal contraption that might be a food bowl on an arm, so that the adult lions can be fed from outside the cage, and the bowl retrieved.
Found at: https://kunkelfineart.de/en/artwork/meyerheim-paul-feeding-the-cubs/
detail from "Virgin and Child with Canon van der Paele". Oil painting on oak panel. Jan van Eyck, ca 1434.
Image description: painting of a marble statue of Samson holding open a lion's mouth.
This is a detail from this painting:
Found at: wikipedia. In collection of the Groeningemuseum.
Samson and the lion. Illustration. 1445
Note: Image is cropped to just Samson and the Lion.
Image description: Medieval illustration, from a book. On the left half, Samson (long haired, blond) sits atop a lion. He holds open the lion's mouth. The lion's tongue sticks out. On the right half, slightly closer to the viewer, are an older man and woman. They're clad in long green and red robes. The woman has a white head-covering. The man has a green head-covering. They're both looking away from Samson and the lion. The woman's hands are clasped in prayer.
Found at: The New York Public Library