Tarquin and Lucretia

The episode narrated in this painting is taken from the first book of Livy’s History of Rome (58, 1-6). Tarquin is portrayed threatening Lucretia with a dagger, and preparing to rape her. He is clothed in an elegant cerulean jacket with gold embroidery and frogging. Lucrezia, in all her naked beauty, is pressed to the bed, attempting in vain to fight off his advances, her face flushed with shame and exertion – an effect highlighted by the contrast between the white of the pillows and the dark blond of her hair. A servant in the background watches the scene helplessly, unaware that he too will become a victim of the ruthless assassin. Ficherelli modernised the ancient tragedy by setting the scene in the bedroom of a seventeenth-century home, rendered theatrical by the curtains which frame the central episode: the physical and psychological struggle between the two protagonists, accentuated by the figures’ closeness to the picture plane and the fact that they are positioned slightly higher than the viewer.
[F. Baldassari]