Francesco Francia, Italian, c.1450-1517
Title: Lucretia
Date: c.1506
Medium: Oil on panel
Dimensions:
61 x 48 cm
Credit Line: Purchased, 1879
Object Number: NGI.190
ProvenancePurchased, Mr. G. Salting, 1879
Exhibition HistoryBurlington Fine Arts Club, London, 1894
Label TextThis is one of three paintings of Lucretia by the Bolognese goldsmith-turned-painter Francia. The story of Lucretia was popular in Renaissance Italy as a moralising tale of virtue and vice. According to accounts, written by the Roman historian Livy and the poet Ovid in the 1st century ad, Lucretia killed herself with a stab wound to the chest after being raped by Sextus Tarquinius, the Etruscan king’s son. Her husband Collatinus, and her relative Brutus, avenged her violation and death by leading a revolt against the Etruscan monarchy. This ultimately led to the establishment of the Roman Republic in 509 bc.