Long before its commercialisation as entertainment, wrestling was an important form of hand-to-hand combat, developed into a sport by the ancient Greeks, and a feature of Spartan military training and classical games, the origin of the Olympics. Although never a popular theme for paintings, wrestling has narrative significance, as shown in this small selection of examples.

In ancient myth, Achelous and the hero Hercules (Heracles) engaged in a wrestling match, during which Achelous transformed himself into a bull, Hercules wrenched one of his horns off, and that became the cornucopia, horn of plenty.

Cornelis Cornelisz. van Haarlem’s painting of Hercules and Achelous, probably from around 1590, shows a late stage in their wrestling, with Achelous the bull brought to the ground by Hercules, who is here trying to twist his horns off.

Guido Reni’s Hercules and Achelous (1617-21) opts for a more conventional wrestling match, with Achelous still in human form.

Noël Coypel, father of the better-known history painter Antoine Coypel, painted Hercules Fighting Achelous in about 1667-69. This too opts to show the pair during the first phase of their fight. In addition to wearing his lionskin, Hercules wields his fearsome club, although Ovid doesn’t refer to its use on this occasion.

Another ancient narrative involving wrestling is told in the Old Testament book of Genesis, chapter 32 verses 22-31, when Jacob is on his journey to Canaan:

And he rose up that night, and took his two wives, and his two womenservants, and his eleven sons, and passed over the ford Jabbok. And he took them, and sent them over the brook, and sent over that he had.

And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day. And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh; and the hollow of Jacob’s thigh was out of joint, as he wrestled with him. And he said, “Let me go, for the day breaketh.” And he said, “I will not let thee go, except thou bless me.” And he said unto him, “What is thy name?” And he said, “Jacob.”

And he said, “Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed.” And Jacob asked him, and said, “Tell me, I pray thee, thy name.” And he said, “Wherefore is it that thou dost ask after my name?” And he blessed him there.

And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved. And as he passed over Peniel the sun rose upon him, and he halted upon his thigh.

Eugène Delacroix’s large and magnificent painting of Jacob Wrestling with the Angel (1854-61) shows the moment the stranger touches Jacob on the tendon of his thigh and renders him helpless (detail below). To the right are flocks of sheep with Jacob’s shepherds driving them on horses and camels.

Jacob and the Angel (1874-78) is Gustave Moreau’s finished oil painting showing the young Jacob wrestling heroically with the invisible power that is God, the angel standing nonchalantly by.

The other well-known story of wrestling in ancient times is that of Samson and the lion. When he was young, Samson fell in love with a Philistine woman. Despite the objections of his parents, he decided to marry her, and travelled to make his proposal. On that journey, he was attacked by a lion, which he wrestled with, and tore apart, thanks to the strength given him by God. He told no one about that episode, and when he was on his way to his wedding, he came across the carcass of that lion. In its body was a bees’ nest containing honey. This inspired the line ‘out of strength came forth sweetness’, long used as a motto on tins of golden syrup.

During Samson’s wedding feast, he posed his thirty Philistine groomsmen a riddle based on his encounters with that lion: Out of the eater came something to eat. Out of the strong came something sweet. They failed to guess the answer, which Samson only revealed after they had threatened him, and his bride had begged him to do so.

In 1891 Léon Bonnat reaffirmed his brilliance at painting figures in Samson’s Youth.

Franz von Stuck’s Samson (1891) is meticulously labelled, and shows the immensely strong Israelite warrior fighting with the huge lion.

During the nineteenth century, folk and Greco-Roman wrestling developed into a sport popular enough by the time of the first modern Olympic Games in 1896 to qualify for inclusion there.

Gustave Courbet’s Wrestlers from 1853 shows two well-muscled men grappling with one another to the entertainment of distant crowds. Unusually for his figurative paintings of the time, Courbet makes it clear that the wrestlers were painted in the studio and appear almost pasted into the setting, without integration of their shadows, for example, and his perspective looks slightly askew.

Frédéric Bazille started painting Summer Scene, also known as Bathers, during the summer of 1869 when he was on holiday in Montpellier. He had already made a series of compositional studies, from as early as February that year, but when he was working on the canvas, he didn’t find it easy going, and complained of headaches and other pains.

He eventually opted for a composition based on strong diagonals, with the bathers in the foreground in shade, while the two wrestlers in the distance are lit by sunshine. The landscape background was painted from the hot green mixture of grass with birch and pine trees, typical of the banks of the River Lez, near Montpellier. He completed this painting in early 1870, and it was accepted for the Salon of that year, where it was well-received by the critics.

Twenty years later, the Naturalist Émile Friant painted The Fight, or Wrestling, (1889), in a rural scene from near Nancy, France. A group of boys have gathered by a small river, and look ready to enter the water. Two are in the foreground, on the opposite bank, engaged in a fight. They are strained over, as one holds the other in a wrestling lock, with their legs spread wide apart and tensed.