Lucretia

Catalogue number: Bredius 485.

Lucretia, the virtuous wife of Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus, committed suicide, as she could not endure the shame of being raped by Sextus Tarquinius, as Livy related. This deed secured the legendary Roman lady a place in the series of exemplary females that in European painting, particularly in court circles, were depicted as examples of virtue.

In most paintings of this subject Lucretia is nude, which gives a sly erotic undertone to the situation, but Rembrandt shows her robed to the neck in fine clothes, like the noblewoman she was. In the picture, she has already driven the dagger into herself and has pulled it out, and the blood seeps through her dress. Although her body remains upright she lurches sideways from the hips as she clutches the bell-rope, and her face has the pallor of approaching death.

The motif of the hand clasping the tasselled rope, however, is a reminder of the common studio practice whereby a model posing with his or her arm raised would support it by means of a rope or sling.