Lucretia

Negretti Jacopo called Jacopo Palma the Elder

(Serina c. 1480 - Venice 1528)

The painting has been documented in the Borghese collection since 1650. The subject, which became a highly successful iconographic theme during the 16th and 17th centuries, is taken from the legendary episode in Roman history which features Lucretia, the virtuous wife of Collatinus. Having been violated by the son of Tarquinius the Proud, the noblewoman preferred to kill herself, which incited the Romans to revolt and  drive out the tyrants. In this work, of which there are other known versions, the artist, through the extraordinary colour palette of Titian, brings some innovations to his training based on the models of Bellini and Giorgione.

Object details

Commentary

Mentioned in 1650 by Iacomo Manilli, who erroneously attributed it to Titian, the painting is mentioned in the inventory of the Borghese collection in 1693 again as a work by Titian (Della Pergola 1964, p. 224). The reference to Vecellio is reported in the Fideicommissary Inventory of 1833, while Piancastelli (1891) listed it more generically as a “Venetian school”. The attribution was duly returned to Palma il Vecchio by Morelli (1897) with a date around 1510-1514. The attribution to the painter and the dating to the early stage of his career were accepted by later critics, with the exception of Berenson (1906, p. 119), who considered it to be a mature work, and Gombosi (1937), who proposed a date around 1520. Della Pergola (1955, p. 125) ruled out its completion after 1515, indicating it, among the various replicas of the subject, as “not [...] among the best”. Mariacher (1968; 1975) dated the painting to after the Dresden Three Sisters, pushing the date to 1518-1520, followed by Rylands (1988), who dated it to the second half of the 1520s speaking of “mechanical execution” and suggesting an involvement on the part of the workshop.

Coliva (1994) thought it could be dated to around 1510. More recently, Savy (2013) has pointed out its derivation from models by Titian, such as the Vanity in the Alte Pinakothek in Munich, and Belotti (2015, p. 132) has included it among the works belonging to the mature phase, dating it to 1525-1528.

The work depicts the Roman matron Lucretia, wife of Tarquinius Collatinus, who chose to commit suicide in order to escape dishonour after being raped by the son of Tarquinius the Proud. The young woman holds the weapon she is about to use to end her life and stares at the viewer with a calm expression that neutralises the drama of the episode. The work is part of a trend introduced by Titian and which became very fashionable, namely, representing female figures in half-length, sometimes identifiable by the attribute that accompanies them. They share physical features that reflect a florid and sensual beauty. Palma interprets the new genre in the style of Titian in luminous paintings with glazed surfaces, where the subject turns her gaze towards the viewer with an attitude that is an explicit invitation, as with the Borghese Lucretia.

Elisa Martini