Tarquínio e Lucrécia

This work dates from the period of formation of Almeida Júnior at the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts in Rio de Janeiro. It is an academic exercise in historical painting in which the painter copies a work of his teacher, in this case, Victor Meirelles. The work of Meirelles, in turn, is also a copy of a painting by the Italian artist Guido Cagnacci, whose original is in the collection of the Accademia di San Luca in Rome. Meirelles studied in this institution during the period in which he resided in Italy as a scholar of the imperial government between 1853 and 1856, and probably executed his copy of the "Tarquinio e Lucrezia" of Cagnacci under the guidance of Professors Tommaso Minardi and Nicola Consoni. The Meirelles copy is a rather reduced version of the original from Cagnacci. The episode narrated happens in 509 a. C. and its most important literary source is the book of the Roman historian Tito Lívio (59 a. - 17 AD), known as "Ab urbe condita" (History of Rome from its foundation). In this work, Lívio tells the story of Lucrecia, wife of a Roman consul whose beauty and chastity arouse an uncontrollable passion in Sixtus Tarquinius, son of the king of Rome. Tarquinius takes advantage of his situation as a guest in Lucrezia's house to rape her under threat of death if there was resistance, saying that he would leave the corpse of a naked and beheaded slave to be accused of having been caught in adultery. The moment chosen for the representation is precisely of the harassment, when Tarquinio threatens Lucrecia with a dagger, forcing her to the sexual act. Mortified by her loss of honor, Lucrecia commits suicide after obtaining an oath of revenge from her father and husband. Lucrezia's suicide was the trigger for a popular revolt that would lead to the fall of the Tarquinian rule and the establishment of the Roman Republic.