Lucretia

This half-length depiction of the Roman heroine Lucretia shows her against a dark background, wearing an elaborately decorated dress and two large, linked chains. Her head is inclined slightly to her left and her hair is pinned up in a hairnet. She holds an ornate dagger directly in front of her body and has pressed the tip into her chest below her breasts. In this respect the interpretation differs from the usual bare-chested versions of this subject produced in Cranach’s workshop. Her friendly expression is also rather unusual and is perhaps not quite befitting of an act of suicide.

[cda 2023]