The Suicide of Lucretia

Description The suicide of the Roman heroine Lucretia was related by the historian Livy (59 BC-AD 17). Raped by an Etruscan prince, she extracted an oath of vengeance from her father and husband and then stabbed herself. As a result, the Etruscan kings were expelled and the Roman Republic established (late 6th century BC). At the time, her response to being raped- suicide- was considered appropriate, even noble. By the 1500s, Lucretia was depicted as a beautiful woman whose rich garments are pulled open and who plunges a dagger into her breast. This dagger is inscribed with the mark of a Nuremberg goldsmith, Heinrich Ulrich. The painter is identified only by his initials CSB (?), but the colors, mannerist figure type, and erotic overtones suggest a German artist at the Habsburg court in Prague around 1600.

Conservation

Date	Description	Narrative
5/10/1948	Treatment	cleaned; repaired; loss compensation; coated
5/13/1952	Treatment	cleaned

Exhibitions

• World of Wonder. The Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore. 1971-1972.

Provenance Don Marcello Massarenti Collection, Rome; Henry Walters, Baltimore, 1902, by purchase; Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.

Credit Acquired by Henry Walters with the Massarenti Collection, 1902