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Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., “Rembrandt van Rijn/Lucretia/1664,” Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century, NGA Online Editions, https://purl.org/nga/collection/artobject/83 (accessed March 18, 2024).

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Overview

After learning the fundamentals of drawing and painting in his native Leiden, Rembrandt van Rijn went to Amsterdam in 1624 to study for six months with Pieter Lastman (1583–1633), a famous history painter. Upon completion of his training Rembrandt returned to Leiden. Around 1632 he moved to Amsterdam, quickly establishing himself as the town’s leading artist. He received many commissions for portraits and history paintings, and attracted a number of students who came to learn his method of painting.

The tragic story of Lucretia, recounted by Livy, took place in Rome in the sixth century BC during the reign of the tyrannical ruler Tarquinius Superbus. Rembrandt portrays Lucretia in utter anguish, right before her act of suicide. The tension surrounding that awful moment poignantly captures the moral dilemma of a woman forced to choose between life and honor.

Lucretia's husband, Collatinus, had boasted to his fellow soldiers that her loyalty and virtue were greater than that of their wives. Taking him up on the challenge, the men immediately rode to Rome where they discovered Lucretia and her handmaidens spinning wool. Lucretia's very virtue enflamed the desire of Sextus Tarquinius, son of the tyrant, who secretly returned to the house a few days later. Lucretia received him as an honored guest, but he later betrayed that hospitality by entering her chamber and threatening to kill her if she did not yield to him. The next day Lucretia summoned her father and husband, disclosed what had happened, and told them that, even though they deemed her an innocent victim, she was determined to end her life in order to reclaim her honor. Lucretia then drew a knife from her robe, drove it into her heart, and died. Overwhelmed by grief and anger, Lucretia’s father, her husband, and two accompanying friends swore to avenge her death. Lucretia's rape and death triggered a revolt that led to the overthrow of monarchical tyranny and the creation of the Roman Republic.

Entry

In a moment of inner anguish Lucretia stands, with arms outstretched, just prior to her act of suicide. Although her body faces the viewer, she looks down toward the sharply pointed dagger clenched in her right hand. She holds her left hand open at the same height as the right, as though part of her resists completing the self-destructive act. The tension surrounding that awful moment emphasizes the human drama of a woman caught in the moral dilemma of choosing between life and honor, a choice that would take on symbolic connotations.

The tragedy of Lucretia’s impending suicide is intensified in the contrast Rembrandt develops between her elegant attire and the poignancy of her gesture and expressions. Richly adorned with golden diadem, pearl earrings, pearl necklace, and a chain with a golden pendant from which hangs a tear-shaped pearl, she is a regal figure. Her golden dress with a cape that falls over her out-stretched arms adds to her splendor. Rembrandt, however, arranged her robes so as to emphasize her vulnerability. The clasps that hook her dress at the bodice hang unfastened. With her dress parted, her chest covered only by the white chemise that fits so gracefully, she is about to thrust the dagger into her heart.

The tragic story of Lucretia, recounted by Livy, took place during the reign of the tyrannical ruler Tarquinius Superbus in Rome in the sixth century BC. While away during the siege of Ardea, Lucretia’s husband, Collatinus, boasted that her loyalty and virtue were greater than that of his compatriots' wives. Taking up the challenge, the men at camp rode immediately to Rome where they discovered Lucretia alone with her handmaidens, spinning wool while other wives were idly enjoying their leisure. Lucretia’s very virtue, however, inflamed the desire of Tarquinius’ son, Sextus Tarquinius, who returned without Collatinus’ knowledge a few days later. Having been received as an honored guest, he later stole secretly to Lucretia’s chamber, drew his sword, and threatened to kill her if she did not yield to him. She resisted, but when Sextus Tarquinius threatened to kill his own slave as well and place their naked bodies together to give the appearance that they had been killed in the act of adultery, she yielded to his demands rather than die in such disgrace.

The next day Lucretia summoned her father and husband to her side and related what had happened, stressing that only her body had been violated, not her heart. Despite their protestations of her innocence, she was determined to make the moral choice that fate had forced upon her, saying: “Never shall Lucretia provide a precedent for unchaste women to escape what they deserve.” Livy relates that with these words Lucretia drew a knife from under her robe, drove it into her heart, and fell forward, dead.[1]

Overwhelmed by grief, Lucretia’s father, her husband, and two accompanying friends swore to avenge her death. Her suicide helped rouse the anger of the populace against the tyrannical rule of Tarquinius Superbus, who was forced into exile. Sextus Tarquinius, who was also driven from Rome, was assassinated shortly thereafter. In Livy’s account Lucretia embodied chastity, but her tragedy assumed wider political dimensions because she was also considered a metaphor for Rome itself. Lucretia’s rape came to symbolize the tyrannical subjugation of the city by Tarquinius Superbus and his family.[2] Her rape triggered the revolt that led to the overthrow of tyranny and the creation of political freedom in the form of a republican government.

Rembrandt painted at least three images of Lucretia in his later years. The earliest of these is known only through an inventory of the possessions of Abraham Wijs and Sara de Potter, made on March 1, 1658. The inventory lists: “A large painting of Lucretia, by R: Van Rijn.”[3] The two extant images date from the last decade of Rembrandt’s life: the Washington Lucretia, 1664, and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts’ Lucretia, 1666 [fig. 1]. In the Gallery's haunting image, Rembrandt has evoked both Lucretia’s profound sadness and her resignation to the fate forced upon her. In the Minneapolis version, Rembrandt has portrayed Lucretia just after she has stabbed herself, her chemise already stained by blood from the mortal wound. The two images complement each other not only because their compositions and painterly qualities are similar, but also because they explore Lucretia’s emotions as she readies herself prior to her self-sacrifice and then responds to the consequences of her action. Nevertheless, they do not seem to have been conceived as a pair. The models Rembrandt used are different and their robes and jewelry, though similar in type, are not identical.[4]

As Stechow has demonstrated, three traditions exist for the representation of the Lucretia story: “narrative combinations of various scenes pertaining to the legend; dramatic scenes concentrating entirely on Tarquinius’ misdeed; and single figures of Lucretia stabbing herself.”[5] Rembrandt's image belongs to the last. He certainly knew a number of earlier representations of Lucretia through prints and engravings, although only one has been suggested as a prototype for the Washington painting: Marcantonio Raimondi’s engraving after a Raphael design [fig. 2].[6] The essential transformation of the idealized statuesque figure into the emotionally evocative image of Rembrandt’s Lucretia, however, argues that the relationship is more superficial than real. Far closer in spirit to Rembrandt, however, are half-length depictions of Lucretia by Titian and his school that represent the heroine dressed in loose-fitting robes and poised at the moment before she thrusts the dagger into her heart.[7] Rembrandt, who was profoundly influenced by Venetian art during his later years, may have known of such depictions of Lucretia, for a number of such paintings ascribed to Titian or Paolo Veronese were in Archduke Leopold Wilhelm’s collection in Brussels during the 1650s.[8]  The painting of this compositional type that Rembrandt certainly knew, and used as a basis for other paintings in the 1640s and 1650s, was Titian’s Flora [fig. 3], which was auctioned in Amsterdam in 1639.[9] The similarities in the general disposition of Lucretia’s head in the Washington painting and that of Flora suggest that this work continued to exert its influence on Rembrandt into the mid-1660s. Even supposing such antecedents could have helped provide the visual vocabulary for the rich pictorial effects and iconic composition of Rembrandt’s painting, the psychological characterization of Lucretia’s emotional state is entirely personal.

No record of commissions exists for these works, nor other information concerning Rembrandt’s motivation for painting them. Schwartz has suggested that the paintings have political overtones.[10] Because Lucretia’s suicide precipitated the revolt that helped institute the Roman Republic, she had traditionally been viewed, among her other qualities, as a symbol of patriotism. That such an attribute was associated with her in Rembrandt’s time is clear from a poem written by Jan Vos in 1660, quoted by Schwartz, about a Lucretia painted by Govaert Flinck (Dutch, 1615 - 1660) in the collection of Joan Huydecoper, one of the most influential patrons of the day: “In the red ink [of her blood] she writes a definition of freedom.” Lucretia, then, may well have assumed particular allegorical importance in the parallels that were being drawn around 1660 between the foundations of the Roman and Dutch Republics, as did Claudius Civilis, the first-century rebel leader of the Batavian revolt and the subject of Rembrandt’s 1661 painting for the Amsterdam Town Hall.[11]

The forceful impact of Rembrandt’s paintings of Lucretia, however, seems also to have resulted from personal associations the artist made between experiences in his life and the emotional traumas that he projected onto Lucretia at the time of her suicide. Only thus can we explain the essential transformation of the pictorial traditions for portraying this legendary Roman heroine that occurs in the two majestic paintings in Washington and Minneapolis.

Lucretia, in maintaining her honor through death, come to be revered as a symbol of chastity, honor, and faithfulness. Knuttel speculated that the 1664 Lucretia may have served as a psychological catharsis for Rembrandt after the death of his companion, Hendrickje, the previous year. Indeed, parallels can be found between Lucretia’s faithfulness and self-sacrifice and the indignities Hendrickje suffered as a result of her commitment to Rembrandt.[12]

The mythology surrounding Lucretia, however, was complex. While she was honored for her faithfulness she was also criticized by later Christians for having taken her own life, which was seen as a greater evil than adultery and a life of shame. As Garrard has written: “In Roman terms, Lucretia killed herself not out of guilt, but out of shame, concerned for her reputation and for the precedent of pardon that she might set for voluntary adulterers. Christian writers, schooled in a religion that placed the highest premium on the innocence of one’s personal conscience, regarded such values as excessively concerned with appearances and the opinion of others.”[13] Rembrandt, as he so often did, fused here the pagan and Christian worlds to create an exceptionally profound image of the psychological moment just prior to Lucretia’s fatal decision to thrust the knife into her heart. With her arms raised in a gesture that echoes that of Christ on the cross, she looks down toward the weapon of her destruction with an expression of one who, in her decision to commit suicide, must weigh issues never described by Livy: Rembrandt’s Lucretia is not the assured tragic heroine who has determined her punishment and dies for honor, but one who hesitates at that crucial moment because of an awareness of the moral dilemma that she faces.

It may be, as Held has remarked, that Rembrandt drew upon a theatrical tradition to give added poignancy to the moment, for Lucretia, whose mouth is partially open, seems to address the dagger as though giving the closing monologue of this tragic drama.[14] Shakespeare did exactly that in his Rape of Lucretia when she asks:

Poor hand, why quiver’st thou in this decree?
Honour thyself to rid me of this shame;
For if I die, my honour lives in thee,
But if I live, thou livest in my defame.[15]

Rembrandt’s late paintings, whether portraits, biblical accounts, or mythological stories, often take on an almost sacramental character in the way that the artist confronts the viewer with his images. His broad execution, rich colors, impressive use of chiaroscuro, and iconic compositional structure give these works unparalleled forcefulness. In Lucretia, all of these elements of his late style are evident. Particularly remarkable in this painting is his use of chiaroscuro to transform an essentially symmetrical and static pose into an active one. Lucretia is lit not from the front but from the left. Light thus strikes her head, right arm, and shoulder. The dagger blade glistens against her white cuff. Although her left arm is thrown into shadow, her outstretched left hand catches the light. Through these subtle means of emphasis, which until the mid-1980s had been hidden by thick, discolored layers of varnish, Rembrandt heightened the drama by reinforcing the psychological and physical tension of the scene.[16]

Rembrandt painted this image using a broad range of techniques. He modeled the face quite densely by applying a sequence of paint layers. Some layers, such as the soft lavenders that model the shaded portions of the lower cheeks and chin, are quite smooth. Others, such as the pinks and oranges that highlight the cheekbones and the yellowish-whitish areas on the nose and forehead, are brushed on more vigorously. The eyes, nose, and mouth are broadly rendered. Specifics of eyebrows, eyelids, pupils of the eyes, nostrils, and lips were of little concern to the artist; instead he heightened and accented them with deft touches of rust-colored paint. One particularly bold stroke of ocher paint defines the upper left edge of the top lip.

Rembrandt varied his painting techniques in Lucretia’s cape and dress according to the play of light falling across her figure. Where light hits her right arm, Rembrandt cast a golden tone with a rich mixture of yellow, white, red, and salmon-colored paints. Under the lightest areas of the shoulder, he first laid in a light gray layer to give an added luminosity to the paints. On the shaded left sleeve, the paint is much less dense. A deep brown and reddish brown layer covering the Ground in this area forms the basis for the sleeve’s tonality. Over it, Rembrandt, often with a dry brush, applied yellow, greenish yellow, red, and white highlights. In certain instances, for example, in a series of black strokes that shade part of the sleeve, he clearly used a palette knife as well as a brush.

Rembrandt utilized the palette knife even more frequently in the white of the left sleeve. Here he applied a rather dry paint onto the underlying brown layer to suggest the material’s transparency. More extensive use of the palette knife is seen in the dress near Lucretia’s waist. Here he spread broader areas of light-ocher paint with the knife to suggest the luminous character of the fabric. In general, the treatment of this area of the dress resembles that of the left sleeve where the underlying dark brown paint becomes an important ingredient in the overall color tonality. The one area with thick highlights in the dress is the belt, but even here Rembrandt did not really overlap paints. The accents of yellow, orange, and white are loosely applied and do not define the belt to any great degree.[17]

Stylistically, this painting resembles the so-called Jewish Bride in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. The head of Lucretia is extremely close in type and in concept to that of the bride: both are built up in a comparable fashion. Remarkably similar are the ways in which the features are modeled with dense and somewhat roughly brushed strokes of paint. The similarities extend to the technique for the modeling of the pearls and even for indicating the gold diadem in the back of the hair. While most of the robes in the Jewish Bride are more densely painted than those of Lucretia and are built up almost exclusively with a palette knife, in the shaded area under the collar of the man Rembrandt used a modeling technique very similar to that seen in Lucretia’s left arm. Here he also used a brownish Imprimatura layer for the base collar of the robe and accented it lightly with a series of thin strokes of red paint applied with a palette knife.[18]

Similarities in painting technique also exist between this figure of Lucretia and that in Minneapolis, even though the latter work was painted two years later, in 1666. As is appropriate to its starker concept, Rembrandt applied his paints in a more angular fashion in the Minneapolis version than he did in the Washington painting. Still, the modeling of the facial features is once again comparable. One notices in particular the way the top lip is defined with a bold stroke of flesh-colored paint along its upper edge. Also similar is the use of an Imprimatura layer as a base color of the left sleeve, and finally, the structure of the hand holding the dagger.

Arthur K. Wheelock Jr.

April 24, 2014

Inscription

center left: Rembrandt / 1664

Inscription

Provenance

Jean-Joseph-Pierre-Augustin Lapeyrière [1779-1831, known as Augustin Lapeyrière, then de Lapeyrière], Paris; (his sale, Galerie Le Brun, Paris, 19 April 1825 and days following [originally scheduled for 14 March 1825 and days following], no. 143). Michael M. Zachary [d. 1837], London;[1] (sale, Phillips, London, 14-15 April 1826, 1st day, no. 64, bought in); (Zachary sale, Phillips, London, 31 May 1828, no. 25); purchased by Sir Thomas Lawrence [1769-1830] for Hugh Andrew Johnstone Munro [1797-1864], London, and Novar House, near Evanton, Ross-shire, Scotland.[2] Paul Pavlovich Demidoff [1839-1885], Prince of San Donato, near Florence; (his sale, at his residence, Florence, 15 March-10 April 1880, no. 1146). (Léon Gauchez, Paris); (sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 13 July 1889, no. 56, bought in); (Léon Gauchez, Paris), until at least 1893.[3] (Bourgeois & Cie., Paris); (Leo Nardus [1868-1955], Suresnes, France, and New York);[4] Matthew Chaloner Durfee Borden [1842-1912], New York, by 1906;[5] (his estate sale, American Art Association, New York, 13-14 February 1913, 1st day, no. 28); (M. Knoedler & Co., New York and Paris);[6] sold 1913 to (Frederik Müller and Co., Amsterdam); sold 1913 to August Janssen [1863-1918], Amsterdam;[7] his estate; sold 1919 with the entire Janssen collection to (Jacques Goudstikker, Amsterdam).[8] Hermann Heilbuth [1861-1945], Copenhagen, by 1920.[9] (Ehrich Brothers, New York), in 1921.[10] (M. Knoedler & Co., New York and Paris); sold November 1921 to Andrew W. Mellon, Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C.; deeded 28 December 1934 to The A.W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, Pittsburgh; gift 1937 to NGA.

Exhibition History

1832
British Institution for Promoting the Fine Arts in the United Kingdom, London, 1832, no. 44.[1]
1909
The Hudson-Fulton Celebration, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1909, no. 105.
1920
A Collection of Paintings [H. Heilbuth], Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen, 1920-1921, no. 63.
1969
Rembrandt in the National Gallery of Art [Commemorating the Tercentenary of the Artist's Death], National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1969, no. 23, repro.
1991
Rembrandt's Lucretias, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Minneapolis Institute of Arts, 1991-1992, brochure.
2001
Rembrandt's Women, National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh; Royal Academy of Arts, London, 2001, no. 141, repro.
2006
Rembrandt?: The Master and his Workshop, Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen, 2006, no. 18, repro.
2014
Rembrandt: The Late Works, National Gallery, London; Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, 2014-2015, no. 115, repro.

Exhibition History Notes

[1] In 1833 Alfred Joseph Woolmer (1805-1892) painted a fanciful view of the exhibition of 1832 in which Lucretia can be seen hanging prominently to the right of an arched doorway (Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, inv. no. B 1981.25.694). Celina Fox, London World City, 1800-1840 (London, 1992), 447, repro. no. 383.

Technical Summary

The original coarse, plain-weave fabric, composed of heavy, unevenly spun threads, has been lined. The top, right, and left edges have been trimmed slightly, leaving worn and ragged edges. The bottom was at one time used as a tacking margin, but has now been returned to the picture plane. Slight cusping present along the top and sides, but not the bottom, suggests a reduction in that dimension.

The double ground consists of a thick, gray lower layer and a moderately thin, dark brown upper layer.[1] In the dark areas, particularly the background, the dark brown upper ground layer was incorporated into the design, and in the upper left and lower right quadrants the upper ground was deliberately scraped away to expose the gray lower ground layer as part of the composition. In the richly impasted details on the dress, paint was applied thickly and freely with broad brushwork. Paint was both blended wet-into-wet and scumbled with a dry brush to exploit the coarse canvas texture. Extensive use of the palette knife can be recognized in the proper left cuff and in the lower portion of the dress. Incisions with the butt end of the brush are found in the proper left cuff and on the neck.

Several pentimenti have become visible over time. The dagger was once 3.5 cm longer, and the sitter’s proper right sleeve has been altered. Stray brushmarks cross the dress and white blouse at right, suggesting alterations to the neckline.

The paint is in good condition with few losses. Wide-aperture drying crackle has formed on either side of the head. Moderate abrasion has occurred in the darks, and the bottom tacking margin has been overpainted to incorporate it into the design. Conservation treatment was carried out in 1985 to remove an aged, discolored varnish layer and discolored inpainting.

 

[1] The ground composition was analyzed by the NGA Scientific Research department using cross-sections (see report dated May 8, 1985, in NGA Conservation files).

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Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. New York, 1963 (reprinted 1964 in French, German, and Spanish): 314, repro.
1964
Rosenberg, Jakob. Rembrandt: Life and Work. Revised ed. Greenwich, Connecticut, 1964: 286, 360, fig. 245, note 33a, repro. 286.
1965
National Gallery of Art. Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. Washington, 1965: 109.
1966
Bauch, Kurt. Rembrandt Gemälde. Berlin, 1966: 15, no. 284, repro.
1966
Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. A Pageant of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. 2 vols. New York, 1966: 1: 234, color repro.
1966
Gimpel, René. Diary of an Art Dealer. Translated by John Rosenberg. New York, 1966: 161.
1966
Rosenberg, Jakob, Seymour Slive, and Engelbert H. ter Kuile. Dutch Art and Architecture: 1600–1800. Pelican History of Art. Baltimore, 1966: 74.
1967
Livermore, Ann. "Rembrandt and Jansen: a new interpretation." Apollo 85 (April 1967): 240-245, fig. 9.
1968
Gerson, Horst. Rembrandt Paintings. Amsterdam, 1968: 430, 503, no. 373, repro. 431.
1968
National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 97, repro.
1969
Bredius, Abraham. Rembrandt: The Complete Edition of the Paintings. Revised by Horst Gerson. 3rd ed. London, 1969: repro. 394, 596, no. 484.
1969
Haak, Bob. Rembrandt: His Life, His Work, His Time. Translated by Elizabeth Willems-Treeman. New York, 1969: 313, no. 531, color repro.
1969
Held, Julius S. Rembrandt's 'Aristotle' and Other Rembrandt Studies. Princeton, 1969: 95, fig. 3, repro.
1969
National Gallery of Art. Rembrandt in the National Gallery of Art: Commemorating the tercentenary of the artist's death. Exh. cat. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1969: 6, 33, no. 23, repro.
1970
Benesch, Otto. Otto Benesch Collected Writings. 2 vols. Edited by Eva Benesch. London and New York, 1970: 1:140-146, fig. 119.
1972
Rosenberg, Jakob, Seymour Slive, and Engelbert H. ter Kuile. Dutch Art and Architecture, 1600 to 1800. The Pelican History of Art 27. Revised paperback ed. Harmondsworth, 1972: 126.
1973
Held, Julius S. "Das gesprochene Wort bei Rembrandt." In Neue Beiträge zur Rembrandt-Forschung. Edited by Otto van Simson and Jan Kelch. Berlin, 1973: 111-125, repro. 78.
1975
National Gallery of Art. European paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. Washington, 1975: 284, repro.
1975
Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York, 1975: 283, no. 375, color repro.
1976
Sonnenburg, Hubertus von. "Maltechnische Gesichtspunkte zur Rembrandtforschung." Maltechnik-Restauro 82 (1976): 14.
1977
Broos, Ben P. J. Index to the Formal Sources of Rembrandt's Art. Maarssen, 1977: 49-50.
1979
Strauss, Walter L., and Marjon van der Meulen. The Rembrandt Documents. New York, 1979: 418.
1982
Kitson, Michael. Rembrandt. 2nd ed. Oxford, 1982: 48.
1984
Rosenberg, Jakob, Seymour Slive, and Engelbert H. ter Kuile. Dutch Art and Architecture. The Pelican History of Art. Revised ed. Harmondsworth, 1984: 74.
1984
Schwartz, Gary. Rembrandt: Zijn leven, zijn schilderijen. Maarssen, 1984: 330, no. 382, repro.
1984
Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 283, no. 369, color repro., as by Rembrandt van Ryn.
1985
National Gallery of Art. European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. Washington, 1985: 329, repro.
1985
Schwartz, Gary. Rembrandt: His Life, His Paintings. New York, 1985: 330, no. 382, repro.
1986
Guillaud, Jacqueline, and Maurice Guillaud. Rembrandt: das Bild des Menschen. Translated by Renate Renner. Stuttgart, 1986: 371, no. 424, color repro.
1986
Guillaud, Jacqueline, and Maurice Guillaud. Rembrandt, the human form and spirit. Translated by Suzanne Boorsch et al. New York, 1986: no. 424, color repro.
1986
Sutton, Peter C. A Guide to Dutch Art in America. Washington and Grand Rapids, 1986: 313.
1986
Tümpel, Christian. Rembrandt. Translated by Jacques and Jean Duvernet, Léon Karlson, and Patrick Grilli. Paris, 1986: repro. 346, 403, no. 114.
1989
Garrard, Mary D. Artemisia Gentileschi: The Image of the Female Hero in Italian Baroque Art. Princeton, 1989: 237-239, no. 203, repro. 239.
1990
Buijsen, Edwin. "The Battle against the Dollar: The Dutch reaction to American collecting in the period from 1900 to 1914." In Great Dutch Paintings from America. Edited by Ben P. J. Broos. Exh. cat. Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis, The Hague; Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. The Hague and Zwolle, 1990: 60-77, repro. 69.
1991
Bal, Mieke. Reading "Rembrandt": Beyond the Word-Image Opposition. Cambridge New Art History and Criticism. Cambridge, 1991: 64-74, 102, 105, 122, 140, 169, 245, 362, 448 n. 45, repro. 2.1.
1991
Emison, Patricia. "The singularity of Raphael's Lucretia." Art History 14, no. 3 (September 1991): 372-396.
1991
Wheelock, Arthur K., Jr., and George S. Keyes. Rembrandt's Lucretias. Exh. brochure. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1991.
1992
Fehl, Philipp P. Decorum and wit: the poetry of Venetian painting: essays in the history of the classical tradition. Bibliotheca artibus et historiae. Vienna, 1992: 214, ill. 145.
1995
Wheelock, Arthur K., Jr. Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, 1995: 280-287, color repro. 281.
1997
Fleischer, Roland E., and Susan C. Scott, eds. Rembrandt, Rubens, and the art of their time: recent perspectives. Papers in art history from the Pennsylvania State University 11. University Park, PA, 1997: no. 1-7, repro.
1998
Gibson, Sarah S. "Adultery." In Encyclopedia of Comparative Iconography: Themes Depicted in Works of Art. Edited by Helene E. Roberts. 2 vols. Chicago, 1998: 1:31.
1998
Roberts, Helene E., ed. Encyclopedia of Comparative Iconography: Themes Depicted in Works of Art. 2 vols. Chicago, 1998: 1:31.
1999
Jensen, Knud W. De glade givere: museernes bedste billeder. Exh. cat. Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek, 1999: 111, repro.
1999
Minor, Vernon Hyde. Baroque and Rococo Art and Culture. New York, 1999: 170, repro.
1999
Schama, Simon. Rembrandt's Eyes. New York, 1999: 660, repro.
1999
Zuffi, Stefano and Francesca Castria, La peinture baroque. Translated from Italian by Silvia Bonucci and Claude Sophie Mazéas. Paris, 1999: 184, color repro.
2000
Wright, Christopher. Rembrandt. Collection Les Phares 10. Translated by Paul Alexandre. Paris, 2000: 77, fig. 66.
2001
Bal, Mieke. Looking In: The Art of Viewing. Critical voices in art, theory and culture. Amsterdam, 2001: 96, repro.
2001
Brown, Ron. The Art of Suicide. London, 2001: 106, repro.
2001
Lloyd Williams, Julia. Rembrandt's Women. Exh. cat. National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh; Royal Academy of Arts, London. London, 2001: no. 141, repro.
2002
Dixon, Annette, ed. Women who Ruled: Queens, Goddesses, Amazons in Renaissance and Baroque Art. Exh. cat. University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor. London, 2002: 73, repro.
2003
Baines, Barbara J. Representing rape in the English early modern period. Mellen studies in literature: Jacobean drama 106. Lewiston, 2003: 250, repro. 15.
2003
Golahny, Amy. Rembrandt's Reading: The Artist's Bookshelf of Ancient Poetry and History. Amsterdam, 2003: 148, 151, fig. 37.
2003
Waagen, Gustav Friedrich. Treasures of Art in Great Britain. Translated by Elizabeth Rigby Eastlake. Facsimile edition of London 1854. London, 2003: 2:137, no. 1.
2004
Braider, Christopher. Baroque Self-Invention and Historical Truth: Hercules at the Crossroads. Burlington, VT, 2004: 56, 58, repro.
2004
Hand, John Oliver. National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection. Washington, 2004: 200-201, no. 157, color repro.
2006
Rønberg, Lene Bøgh, and Eva de la Fuente Pedersen. Rembrandt?: The Master and His Workshop. Exh. cat. Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen, 2006: 206, fig. 18.
2007
Lopez, Jonathan. "‘Gross False Pretenses’: The Misdeeds of Art Dealer Leo Nardus." Apollo ser. 2, 166, no. 548 (December 2007): 80-81, fig. 10.
2011
Bailey, Colin B. Rembrandt and His School: Masterworks from the Frick and Lugt Collections. Exh. cat. Frick Collection, New York, 2011: 20-21, color repro.
2011
Keyes, George S., Tom Rassieur, and Dennis P. Weller. Rembrandt in America: collecting and connoisseurship. Exh. cat. North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh; Cleveland Museum of Art; Minneapolis Institute of Arts. New York, 2011: fig. 86, 154-156.
2014
Bikker, Jonathan, and Gregor J.M. Weber. Rembrandt: The Late Works. Exh. cat. National Gallery, London; Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. London, 2014: no. 115, repro. (detail) 234, 243-245, repro. 246, 298.
2014
Wieseman, M.E., Jonathan Bikker, et al. Rembrandt: The Late Works, Supplement with Provenance, Selected Literature and Bibliography. Online supplement to Exh. cat. National Gallery London; Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. London, 2014, https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/media/25834/rembrandt-supplement.pdf:19.
2018
Meersschaert, Erik. Adrian Brouwer--zo zijn leven, zo zijn werk. Oudenaarde, 2018: 256, 257, color repro.
2021
Quodbach, Esmée. "A forgotten episode from America's history of collecting: the rise and fall of art dealer Leo Nardus, 1894-1908." Simiolus 43, no. 4 (2021): 353-375, esp. 373 fig. 25.

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