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, Italian, c.1450-1517
Title
Lucretia
Datec.1506
MediumOil on panel
Dimensions
61 x 48 cm
Credit LinePurchased, 1879
Object numberNGI.190
ProvenancePurchased, Mr. G. Salting, 1879Exhibition 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.