''Tarquin and Lucretia'' is an oil painting by

Titian Tiziano Vecelli or Vecellio (; 27 August 1576), known in English as Titian ( ), was an Italians, Italian (Republic of Venice, Venetian) painter of the Renaissance, considered the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school (art), ...

completed in 1571, when the artist was in his eighties, for

Philip II of Spain Philip II) in Spain, while in Portugal and his Italian kingdoms he ruled as Philip I ( pt, Filipe I). (21 May 152713 September 1598), also known as Philip the Prudent ( es, Felipe el Prudente), was King of Spain from 1556, King of Portugal from ...

. It is signed, and considered to have been finished entirely by Titian himself. It is one of a series of great works from Titian's last years, but unlike some of these, is fully finished. It is now in the

Fitzwilliam Museum The Fitzwilliam Museum is the art and antiquities museum of the University of Cambridge. It is located on Trumpington Street opposite Fitzwilliam Street in central Cambridge. It was founded in 1816 under the will of Richard FitzWilliam, 7th Vis ...

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

, England. The story from early Roman history (or legend) of the rape of Lucretia by Sextus Tarquinius (Tarquin), and her subsequent suicide, was a popular subject in Renaissance art. Tarquin raped Lucretia after threatening to kill her if she rejected his advances; this is the moment shown here. The next day she exposed him and committed suicide, prompting the Romans to revolt and overthrow Tarquin's father

Tarquin the Proud Lucius Tarquinius Superbus (died 495 BC) was the legendary seventh and final king of Rome, reigning 25 years until the popular uprising that led to the establishment of the Roman Republic.Livy, ''ab urbe condita libri'', I He is commonly known ...

, the last king of Rome, and establish the

Roman Republic The Roman Republic ( la, Res publica Romana ) was a form of government of Rome and the era of the classical Roman civilization when it was run through public representation of the Roman people. Beginning with the overthrow of the Roman Kin ...

. This is traditionally dated to 509 BC. Violent subjects are characteristic of Titian's last years, mostly drawn from mythology or religion, but the directness of this composition stands out among them. The refinement of the poses of the figures is reflected in other contemporary versions of the painting. By this late stage in his career, Titian often took many years over paintings, setting them aside for long periods, only returning to them later. This painting is fully finished, and had been in progress for several years. As one of the latest documented and fully finished paintings by Titian, it is evidence for the much-debated question of whether other late Titians were ever finished or not.

Subject

Most commonly, art depicted either the moment of the rape, or Lucretia is shown alone at the moment of her suicide. In this near life-size late version, which Titian said in a letter of 1568 (three years before it was completed) was "an invention involving greater labour and artifice than anything, perhaps, that I have produced for many years", the drama of the composition is heightened by small touches in pure white at the tip of the dagger and in Tarquin and Lucretia's eyes. The head and hand entering from the left belong to a male slave; in

Livy Titus Livius (; 59 BC – AD 17), known in English as Livy ( ), was a Ancient Rome, Roman historian. He wrote a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people, titled , covering the period from the earliest legends of Rome before the traditiona ...

's telling Tarquin told Lucretia that if she did not yield to him, he would kill both Lucretia and the slave and then claim to have caught them during the act of adultery. The violent attack is closer to

Ovid Pūblius Ovidius Nāsō (; 20 March 43 BC – 17/18 AD), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a contemporary of the older Virgil and Horace, with whom he is often ranked as one of the th ...

's account of the story, and although this is the only painting of a historical subject from Titian's last years, his mythological subjects are also all covered by Ovid. Lucretia wears her jewellery to bed, and Tarquin's clothes are modern and rich. Titian's signature is on the slipper at lower right. The painting has been trimmed on all sides, but it is not known when or by how much. The subject was one of a group showing women from legend or the Bible who were powerless, or only able to escape their situation through suicide, such as Susanna,

Dido of Carthage Dido ( ; , ), also known as Elissa ( , ), was the legendary founder and first queen of the Phoenician city-state of Carthage (located in modern Tunisia), in 814 BC. In most accounts, she was the queen of the Phoenician city-state of Tyre (t ...

and Verginia. These formed a counterpoint to, or sub-group of, the set of subjects known as the Power of Women, showing female violence against, or domination of, men. These were often depicted by the same artists, and especially popular in Northern Renaissance art. The story of Esther lay somewhere between these two extremes.

Influences and copies

Either Titian or, as is now thought more likely, his brother Francesco Vecellio (c. 1490-1559/60), had already painted the suicide, as "an elegant dance movement in a landscape", some 50 years earlier (now

Royal Collection The Royal Collection of the British royal family is the largest private art collection in the world. Spread among 13 occupied and historic royal residences in the United Kingdom, the collection is owned by King Charles III and overseen by the ...

). Titian, or perhaps

Palma Vecchio Palma Vecchio (c. 1480 – 30 July 1528), born Jacopo Palma, also known as Jacopo Negretti, was a Venetian painter of the Italian High Renaissance. He is called Palma Vecchio in English and Palma il Vecchio in Italian ("Palma the Elder") to di ...

, had also painted a typical portrait of Lucretia holding a knife, but with the untypical addition of a male figure in deep shadow, either Tarquin or her husband, standing just behind her. This comes from 1514–15 and is now in the

Kunsthistorisches Museum The Kunsthistorisches Museum ( "Museum of Art History", often referred to as the "Museum of Fine Arts") is an art museum in Vienna, Austria. Housed in its festive palatial building on the Vienna Ring Road, it is crowned with an octagonal do ...

, Vienna, with an early copy in the Royal Collection. Titian's new composition can be shown to have been influenced by Northern prints, and was itself immediately popularized by an engraving by

Cornelius Cort Cornelis Cort (c. 1533 – c. 17 March 1578) was a Dutch engraver and draughtsman. He spent the last 12 years of his life in Italy, where he was known as ''Cornelio Fiammingo''. Biography Born in Hoorn or Edam, Cort may have been a pupil of D ...

, dated 1571, which is "evidently from some authorized ''modeletto''". This reversed the composition (in a mirror image, as print copies naturally do) but another print published in Rome, presumably pirated, copied the print and so reversed the composition again to restore the original. The exact poses of the individual figures also have precedents, with Lucretia perhaps drawing from the female figure (

Dirce Dirce (; , , modern Greek , meaning "double" or "cleft") was a queen of Thebes as the wife of Lycus in Greek mythology. Family Dirce was a daughter of the river-gods Achelous or Ismenus, or of Helios. Mythology After Zeus impregnated Dir ...

) in the famous Roman sculpture known as the ''

Farnese Bull The ''Farnese Bull'' ( it, Toro Farnese), formerly in the Farnese collection in Rome, is a massive Roman elaborated copy of a Hellenistic sculpture. It is the largest single sculpture yet recovered from antiquity. Along with the rest of the Fa ...

''. The composition evolved as Titian worked on it, as is shown by x-rays of the painting, and a workshop copy now in the

Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux The Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux is the fine arts museum of the city of Bordeaux, France. The museum is housed in a dependency of the Palais Rohan in central Bordeaux. Its collections include paintings, sculptures and drawings from the 15t ...

(illustrated here), which reflects an earlier composition where the hand with the dagger is much lower, and threatening to thrust upwards not down. Here Lucretia's head is also turned away from Tarquin. The x-rays of the Cambridge painting show that the lower position of the arm had been tried there. There is an unfinished version, or study, with the raised hand but many other differences, now in the Akademie der bildenden Künste in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

(illustrated here). This is believed by some to be by Titian, but for others "the uncertainty of form and anatomy makes it likely to be the work of an assistant or pasticheur".

Provenance

Léon Davent - Tarquin and Lucretia - WGA05968

Like many of the paintings of his last years, it was a commission for

, and was ready for collection by the Spanish ambassador to

Venice Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...

by August 1571. Titian's own title, from a letter, is ''Lucretia romana violata da Tarquino'' ("Lucretia of Rome raped by Tarquinius"). It remained in the Spanish royal collection until 1813, when it was taken to France by

Joseph Bonaparte it, Giuseppe-Napoleone Buonaparte es, José Napoleón Bonaparte , house = Bonaparte , father = Carlo Buonaparte , mother = Letizia Ramolino , birth_date = 7 January 1768 , birth_place = Corte, Corsica, Republic of ...

, Napoleon's older brother, after he lost the Spanish throne. It probably accompanied him to America from 1817 to 1832. After his death in 1844 it was sold in London in 1845, and after several private owners, it was given by

Charles Fairfax Murray Charles Fairfax Murray (30 September 1849 – 25 January 1919) was a British painter, dealer, collector, benefactor, and art historian who was connected with the second wave of the Pre-Raphaelites. Early years The youngest of four children, ...

to the Fitzwilliam Museum in 1918. It was frequently back on the market before this, sold in all six times, probably because of its shocking power. Murray had bought it in 1886, and sold it by 1911, then bought it again.Martineau, 230

Notes

References

*Fitzwilliam Museum
Webpage on the painting
accessed 1 May 2016 * Freedberg, Sydney J. ''Painting in Italy, 1500–1600'', 3rd edn. 1993, Yale, *Jaffé, David (ed), ''Titian'', The National Gallery Company/Yale, London 2003, (Catalogue # 36, entry by David Jaffé) *Martineau, Jane (ed), ''The Genius of Venice, 1500–1600'', 1983, Royal Academy of Arts, London (Catalogue # 130, entry by Martin Jaffé) * Rosand, David, ''Painting in Sixteenth-Century Venice: Titian, Veronese, Tintoretto'', 2nd ed 1997, Cambridge UP *Russell, H Diane (ed), ''Eva/Ave; Women in Renaissance and Baroque Prints'', National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1990, * Steer, John, ''Venetian painting: A concise history'', 1970, London: Thames and Hudson (World of Art), * Stroud, Patricia Tyson, ''The Man Who Had Been King: The American Exile of Napoleon's Brother Joseph'', 2014, University of Pennsylvania Press, , 9780812290424
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{{Authority control Mythological paintings by Titian Paintings in the collection of the Fitzwilliam Museum 1570s paintings 1571 works Nude art

Cultural depictions of Sextus Tarquinius Paintings based on Fasti (poem) Paintings formerly in the Spanish royal collection