National Gallery of Art :: The Collection :: Tarquin and Lucretia
  • Overview
  • Provenance
  • Exhibition History
  • Bibliography

Overview

An historical tale told by Livy, Ovid, and even Shakespeare is the rape of Lucretia. Sextus Tarquinius, son of the Etruscan King of Rome, forced the Roman matron to submit to his advances by threatening to kill her and, then, to make it seem that she had been caught in adultery. Afterward, Lucretia told her family of this outrage and took her own life. Her family avenged her honor by overthrowing the tyrannical king, an act which led to the establishment of the Roman republic. Lucretia, as an exemplar of feminine virtue and Roman stoicism, was a favorite subject for baroque painters who reveled in depicting the extreme passion and violence of the story.

If Crespi's subject is classical, his style is decidedly not. He shows Sextus Tarquinius as he rushes in and forces himself on Lucretia, in his haste entangling himself in the rustling silk curtains of Lucretia's bed. The rough-looking villain has dropped his dagger and now remonstrates with Lucretia to cease her futile protest. Crespi's brush moved with great speed, and he made dramatic use of light, contrasting the luminous face of virtuous Lucretia with the sinister, shadowed profile of her attacker. Even the carved horse of Lucretia's bed comes alive, stirred by the violent episode.

Inscription

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Marks and Labels

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Provenance

Possibly Palazzo Barbazza, Bologna, by 1739 until at least the 1760s.[1] Probably Duke Albert von Sachsen-Teschen [1738 1822], Bratislava, Brussels, and Vienna, by 1768 [as by Mattia Preti].[2] (Guillaume Verbelen, Brussels); (his sale, Brussels, 8 October 1833, no. 148, as Mattia Preti). J.J. Chapuis [d. 1865], Brussels; (his sale, De Donker and Vergote, Brussels, 4 December 1865 and days following, no. 320, as by Mattia Preti).[3] (M.A. Almas, Paris, 1937).[4] (Le Bouheler, Paris); purchased 1938 by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[5] gift 1952 to NGA.

[1] Giampietro Zanotti, Storia dell'Accademia Clementina di Bologna, 2 vols., Bologna, 1739: 2:58; Marcello Oretti, "Le pitture...della Città di Bologna", 3 vols., Biblioteca Comunale, Bologna, MS B104, in Marcello Oretti e il patrimonio artistico privato bolognese. (Documenti 22), edited by Emilia Calbi and Daniela Scaglietti Kelescian, Bologna, 1984: 87.

[2] According to the Verbelen and Chapuis sale catalogues. Albert's drawing of the pendant listed in those catalogues as also from his collection, Ulysses Abducting Andromache's Son Astyanax, is dated 1768 and bears an inscription attributing the painting to Mattia Preti. This drawing was engraved in 1778 by Jacob Schmuzer: 200 Jahre Albertina: Herzog Albert von Sachsen-Teschen und seine Kunstsammlung, Exh. cat. Graphische Sammlung Albertina, 2 vols., Vienna, 1969: 1:nos. 76-77. The Hecuba Blinding Polymnestor in the Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, often suggested as a pendant to the NGA Lucretia, also came from Albert von Sachsen-Teschen's collection according to Eduard Fétis, Catalogue descriptif et historique du Musée Royal de Belgique, Brussels, 1864: 370. Fétis stated that the painting, acquired by the museum in 1828, was sold at the public sale of Albert's collection along with two other works by Preti bought by a Brussels collector, presumably the Ulysses and Lucretia in Verbelen's sale. No catalogue of Albert's sale has been located. (The reference to Fétis was provided by H. Pauwels, Conservateur en chef of the Musées Royaux, letter of 14 May 1985, NGA curatorial files.)

[3] The description of the Lucretia in the Chapuis sale catalogue corresponds exactly to the NGA painting; the dimensions given (190 x 194 cm) are somewhat wider, but the NGA painting has been cut down on both sides.

[4] Paul Fierens, Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts (letter of 3 December 1948, NGA curatorial files), refers to a note in the files of the Musées Royaux indicating that a Tarquin and Lucretia measuring 195 x 172 cm was offered for sale in 1937 by M.A. Almas, Paris, who considered it the pendant to the Brussels Hecuba.

[5] According to Fern Rusk Shapley, Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools XVI-SVIII Century, London, 1973: 101; and Fern Rusk Shapley, Catalogue of Italian Paintings, 2 vols., Washington, D.C., 1979: 1:146.

Exhibition History

1940
Masterpieces of Art. European & American Paintings 1500-1900, New York World's Fair, 1940, no. 25, repro. 22, as Lucretia Threatened by Tarquin.
1941
Exhibition of Italian Baroque Painting, 17th and 18th Centuries, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, 1941, no. 24, repro. 55.
1944
Three Baroque Masters: Strozzi, Crespi, Piazetta, City Art Museum, St. Louis; Baltimore Museum of Art, 1944, no. 22.
1946
Recent Additions to the Kress Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1946, no. 842.
1986
Giuseppe Maria Crespi and the Emergence of Genre Painting in Italy, Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, 1986, no. 2, color repro.
1990
Giuseppe Maria Crespi 1665-1747, Pinacoteca Nazionale, Bologna; Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart, 1990-1991, no. 14, color repro. (shown ownly in Stuttgart).

Bibliography

1941
Howe, Thomas Carr. "Variety in the Work of Giuseppe Maria Crespi." Pacific Art Review 1 (1941): 3, fig. 1.
1945
Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1945 (reprinted 1947, 1949): 137, repro., as Lucretia Threatened by Tarquin.
1959
Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 235, repro., as Lucretia Threatened by Tarquin.
1965
Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 34, as Lucretia Threatened by Tarquin.
1965
Matteucci, Anna. Giuseppe Maria Crespi. (I maestri del colore 92.) Milan, 1965: 3, 7, no. 3, color pl. 3.
1968
European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1968: 28, repro., as Lucretia Threatened by Tarquin.
1973
Shapley, Fern Rusk. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XVI-XVIII Century. London, 1973: 101-102, fig. 183.
1975
European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 88, repro., Lucretia Threatened by Tarquin.
1977
Roli, Renato. Pittura bolognese 1650-1800. Dal Cignani ai Gandolfi. Bologna, 1977: 106, 251, fig. 162d.
1979
Riccòmini, Eugenio. In L'Arte del settecento emiliano: La pittura. L'Accademia Clementina. Exh. cat. Palazzo del Podestà e del Re Enzo. Bologna, 1979: 17.
1979
Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1979: I:146-147, II:pl. 103, as Lucretia Threatened by Tarquin.
1979
Watson, Ross. National Gallery of Art. London, 1979: 81, pl. 68, color repro.
1980
Merriman, Mira Pajes. Giuseppe Maria Crespi. Milan, 1980: 74, 284, no. 177, fig. 177.
1984
Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 344, no. 467, color repro., as Lucretia Threatened by Tarquin.
1985
European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 106, repro., as Lucretia Threatened by Tarquin.
1986
Spike, John. Giuseppe Maria Crespi and the Emergence of Genre Painting in Italy. Exh. cat. Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, 1986: 29.
1989
Roli, Renato. "La pittura del secondo seicento in Emilia." In La pittura in Italia. Edited by Mina Gregori and Erich Schleier. 2 vols. Rev. edition. Milan, 1989: 1:265.
1990
Burkarth, Axel. "Giuseppe Maria Crespi nelle collezioni dell'aristocrazia austriaca e tedesca." Accademia Clementina Atti e memorie n.s. 26 (1990): 269-270, 273.
1990
Mazza, Angelo. "I 'turgidi floridi affreschi' in Palazzo Pepoli." In Giuseppe Maria Crespi 1665-1747. Exh. cat. Pinacoteca Nazionale, Bologna; Staatsgalerie Stuttgart. Bologna and Stuttgart, 1990: CCIX.
1990
Spike, John. "Giuseppe Maria Crespi e l'emergere della pittura di genere in Italia." In Accademia Clementina n.s. 26 (1990): 100.
1992
National Gallery of Art, Washington. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 112, repro.
1996
De Grazia, Diane, and Eric Garberson, with Edgar Peters Bowron, Peter M. Lukehart, and Mitchell Merling. Italian Paintings of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1996: 71-76, color repro. 73.
2004
Hand, John Oliver. National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection. Washington and New York, 2004: 165, no. 126, color repro.

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