Lucretia

ca. 1665–67

Caspar Netscher(Prague or Heidelberg ca. 1639 – 1684 TheHague)

oil on panel
28.8 x 24.3 cm
CN-109© 2017 The Leiden Collection

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How To Cite
Wieseman, Marjorie E. "Lucretia." In The Leiden Collection Catalogue. Edited by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr.
New York, 2017.
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© 2017 The Leiden Collection

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The story of the Roman heroine Lucretia is recounted by Livy.[1] The

Comparative Figures

beautiful wife of Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus, a Roman nobleman of thesixth century B.C., Lucretia was renowned for her virtue and loyalty. She
was raped by Sextus Tarquinius, son of Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, thetyrannical Etruscan king of Rome. Lucretia revealed the defilement before
her father, husband, and other male relatives and then—to preserve herhonor and the good name of her family—committed suicide by stabbing
herself in the breast. To avenge the rape, one of Lucretia’s kinsman,
Lucius Junius Brutus, led a revolt to overthrow the monarchy. Brutus andLucretia’s bereaved husband, Collatinus, subsequently became the first
consuls of the Roman Republic.
Lucretia’s tragic and emotionally complex story came to exemplify anequally complex array of abstract concepts: patriotism and the victory ofliberty over tyranny; love and faithfulness unto death; and virtuous female
chastity most of all. Historical reaction to the Roman heroine was not

Fig 1. Lucas Cranach, Lucretia,1533, oil on panel, 37 x 24 cm,
Staatliche Museen, Berlin, Inv.
No. 1832

consistently positive, however, and early Christian writers tended tocondemn her for choosing the mortal sin of suicide over the lesser evil ofadultery. Nonetheless, the story of a woman who chose death overdishonor was steadily popular in a culture that placed such great emphasis
on female chastity.[2] Representations of Lucretia’s suicide abounded inearly sixteenth-century paintings and prints, especially among NorthernEuropean artists: Albrecht Dürer, Lucas Cranach, Hans Baldung, Jan vanScorel, Joos van Cleve, Jan Gossaert, and Pieter Coecke van Aelst wereamong the many that depicted the theme. The majority of these images
removed Lucretia from a narrative context and isolated her figure against aneutral background, thus promoting a greater sense of intimacy between
the figure and the viewer (fig 1). Although Livy and other classical authors
described Lucretia as “modestly clothed,” most of these images show hereither partially clad or completely nude, perhaps prompted by the recent
discovery in Rome of an antique statue of a nude woman believed toFig 2. Guido Reni, Lucretia, ca.
1625, oil on canvas, 215 x 151
cm, Staatliche Schlösser undGärten, Neues Palais, PotsdamSanssouci, inv. GK I 5388

represent Lucretia.[3]The isolation of the figure and the exclusion of narrative context in theseimages have been linked to the conventions of Christian devotional
imagery, which employed similar formal strategies to focus the viewer’s
meditations on the sufferings of Christ or the particular saint depicted, andthus encourage empathetic response.[4] Adopting these conventions wasonly logical, as Lucretia herself was often regarded as a sort of secular© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Lucretia
Page 4 of 9martyr. Unquestionably, however, the voyeuristic appeal of intimate
engagement with a (semi)nude woman—no matter how noble orvirtuous—and the illicit eroticism of Lucretia’s rape were the key factors in
the continued popularity of the theme.
It is not surprising that Caspar Netscher chose the story of Lucretia forwhat was probably his first attempt at a historical subject. Although Gary
Schwartz and others have convincingly proposed that Rembrandt’s
intensely charged Lucretia paintings of 1664 and 1666 might have been
inspired by contemporary political events and the concomitant parallels
drawn between the foundation of the Roman and Dutch Republics,[5] it is
not at all clear that Netscher intended his painting, made during this same
period, to embody similar associations. Like many genre painters who also

Fig 3. Caspar Netscher, Womanat Her Toilet, ca. 1665, oil onpanel, 42.5 x 33 cm, PrivateCollection, London, courtesy
Johnny Van Haeften Ltd.

turned their hand to painting small-scale history pieces during the 1660sand 1670s (FM-103), he chose a well-known subject that lent itself to a
genre-like approach in terms of clothing, setting and accessories, and thatafforded an opportunity to depict a voluptuous semi-clad figure under acloak of historical respectability.[6] Here, posed before a curtained bed in adarkened interior, Lucretia bares her breast to receive the dagger’s thrust,
her tear-filled eyes rolled heavenwards. In general terms, Netscher’sdecision to isolate the figure before a barely visible background recalls thesensuous Lucretias created by sixteenth-century Northern artists, but thesharp turn of the figure’s head and her pathetic upward gaze seem to havebeen more directly inspired by Guido Reni’s numerous depictions of
Lucretia and the equally tragic Cleopatra (fig 2).[7] In both instances, theartist has deliberately eliminated any possibility of eye contact between
figure and viewer, allowing the viewer to intrude freely upon an intensely
private scene. In analyzing the voyeuristic appeal of Reni’s paintings
specifically, Richard Spear has noted that the eroticism of his Lucretias“derives less from nakedness than from their vulnerability and the violation
done to them: from the pending plunge of a cold, sharp dagger into pale
unblemished flesh.”[8] The same might be said of Netscher’s Lucretia aswell.
Lucretia, which is in good condition, was probably painted about
1665–67.[9] The same model appears in Netscher’s genre paintings of themid-1660s (fig 3), many of which project a similar sensual and sensorialappeal. In these works, Netscher often combined discreet glimpses into
private domestic worlds with a detailed attention to the tactile surfaces of© 2017 The Leiden Collection

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fabric and flesh (see also CN-108). Were it not for Lucretia’s artfully
disheveled garments and the slim dagger clutched in her outstretched
hand, she could easily be mistaken for one of these pampered
seventeenth-century beauties. By limiting accessories to a generous swagof green drapery and a pillow hinting at the presence of a bed in the rightbackground, Netscher avoids tying his representation to a specific timeand place. Some have faulted Netscher’s history paintings for lacking acertain dignified historicism; the nineteenth-century critic Charles Blanc,
for example, remarked, “the notion of the antique, the sublime conventions
which form the ideal in art, were too elevated for his spirit. . . . [He] did notforego [using] some pretty Hague lady as the model for his Cleopatra, orCleopatra

herselfasthepretextfora

beautifulsatinrobe.”[10] Nevertheless, the very contemporaneity of Netscher’s Lucretia iswhat contributes most significantly to her sensual appeal.
-Marjorie E. Wieseman© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Lucretia
Page 6 of 9Endnotes
1. Livy (Titus Livius), The Early History of Rome , trans. Aubrey de Sélincourt (London, 1960),
98–99. The story is also told by Ovid (Fasti II: 721–853); see Ian Donaldson, The Rapes ofLucretia: A Myth and Its Transformations (Oxford, 1982), 5–8.
2. Carol Schuler, “Virtuous Model/Voluptuous Martyr: The Suicide of Lucretia in Northern
Renaissance Art and Its Relationship to Late Medieval Devotional Imagery,” in Saints,Sinners and Sisters: Gender and Northern Art in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, ed.
Jane L. Carroll and Alison G. Stewart (Aldershot, 2003), 7–25.
3. Wolfgang Stechow, “Lucretia Statua,” in Essays in Honor of Georg Swarzenski , ed. Oswald
Goetz (Chicago, 1951), 114–24. Another, more emotionally charged and less overtly erotic
tradition exists in depictions of the theme by Titian and other Venetian painters, culminating
in Rembrandt’s remarkable and intensely moving late paintings of Lucretia from 1664
(National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.) and 1666 (Minneapolis Institute of Art).
4. Carol Schuler, “Virtuous Model/Voluptuous Martyr: The Suicide of Lucretia in Northern
Renaissance Art and Its Relationship to Late Medieval Devotional Imagery,” in Saints,Sinners and Sisters: Gender and Northern Art in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, ed.
Jane L. Carroll and Alison G. Stewart (Aldershot, 2003), 7–25.
5. Gary Schwartz, Rembrandt: His Life, His Paintings (New York, 1985), 330; see also Arthur
K. Wheelock Jr., Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century , The Collections of theNational Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue (New York and Oxford, 1995), 283.
6. Marjorie E. Wieseman, Caspar Netscher and Late Seventeenth-Century Dutch Painting(Doornspijk, 2002), 75–77; on the blurring of the distinction between genre and history, seeespecially Lyckle de Vries, “Jan Steen zwischen Genre- und Historienmalerei,”
Niederdeutsch Beitragen zur Kunstgeschichte 22 (1982): 113–28.
7. Reni’s depictions of Cleopatra and Lucretia were exceedingly popular throughout Europe,and a number of contemporary copies survive, as well as engravings after the compositions.
A Lucretia by Reni was in the sale Johan Cau, Lord of Domberg, Amsterdam, 7 May 1710;
see Gerard Hoet, Catalogue ofte Naamlyst van schilderyen (The Hague, 1752), 1:137.
8. Richard E. Spear, The “Divine” Guido: Religion, Sex, Money, and Art in the World of Guido
Reni (New Haven, 1997), 85.
9. From at least 1953 until 1999, when it was cleaned and restored, the painting was attributed
to Jacob Ochtervelt on the basis of a false signature and date (J. Ochtervelt / 1676) atcenter left. See Susan Donahue Kuretsky, The Paintings of Jacob Ochtervelt, 1634–1682:
With Catalog Raisonné (Montclair, 1979), 27–28, 91, no. 91.
10. Charles Blanc, Histoire des peintres de toutes les écoles , vol. 11, École Hollandaise (Paris,© 2017 The Leiden Collection

LucretiaPage 7 of 91863), 8: “Les notions de l’antique, les sublimes conventions dont se compose l’idéal del’art, étaient trop au-dessus de son esprit et lui demeurent inconnues. . . . [Il] n’a pas manquéquelque jolie femme de La Haye pour le modèle de sa Cléopâtre, et sa Cléopâtre elle-mêmepour le prétexte d’une belle robe de satin.”

ProvenanceThomas-François-Joseph, comte de Fraula (1647–1738), Brussels (his sale, Brussels, 21July 1738, no. 71 [for 105 florins]).
Possibly Christian Josi (1768–1828) (his sale, Christie’s, London, 26 February 1796, no. 85[to Thomas Chippendale Jr. for £2.15]).1[1]Admiral Algernon Walker-Heneage-Vivian (1871–1952), Clyne Castle, Blackpill, Wales (hissale, Sotheby’s, London, 3 December 1952, no. 104, as Jacob Ochtervelt [to Dent]).
Leander McCormick-Goodhart, Alexandria, VA., by 1954; by descent until 1999 (sale,Christies, London, 9 July 1999, no. 166, as Jacob Ochtervelt [to Johnny van Haeften Ltd.,
London, and Otto Naumann, Ltd., New York]).
From whom acquired by present owner in 2004.

Provenance Notes

1. The present painting may also have been in one or both of the following sales, in bothcases as by “Mieris” and as the property of Thomas Chippendale Jr.: sale, Christie’s,London, 18 November 1797, lot 33 (for £1.11); and sale, Christie’s, London, 22 December
1798, lot 46 (to Welch[?], for £1.16). Thomas Chippendale Jr., son of the famous furnituremaker, was also an artist and occasional dealer in pictures.

References
Hofstede de Groot, Cornelis. A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent
Dutch Painters of the Seventeenth Century Based on the Work of John Smith.

8 vols.

London, 1907–27, 5:161, no. 38a. Translated from Beschreibendes und kritischesVerzeichnis der Werke der hervorragendsten holländischen Maler des XVII. Jahrhunderts .
© 2017 The Leiden Collection

LucretiaPage 8 of 910 vols. Esslingen and Paris, 1907–28.
Kuretsky, Susan. The Paintings of Jacob Ochtervelt, 1634–1682: With Catalog Raisonné .
Montclair, 1979, 27–28, 91, no. 91, fig. 102, as Jacob Ochtervelt.
Hecht, Peter, ed. De Hollandse fijnschilders: Van Gerard Dou tot Adriaen van der Werff .
Exh. cat. Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum. Amsterdam, 1989, 176 n. 1.
Wieseman, Marjorie E. “Caspar Netscher and Late Seventeenth-Century Dutch Painting.”
Ph.D. diss. Columbia University, 1991, 321–22, no. 45.
Jansen, Guido. “Caspar Netscher.” In The Grove Dictionary of Art. Edited by Jane Turner.
34 vols. New York, 2000, 22:916.
Wieseman, Marjorie E. Caspar Netscher and Late Seventeenth-Century Dutch Painting .
Doornspijk, 2002, 78–79, 84, 198–99, no. 47, fig. 47.
Wuestman, Gerdien. “C. H. van Meurs and His Fijnschilder Prints: A Mysterious Printmakerwith a Forgotten Oeuvre.” Simiolus 37, no. 2 (2013-14): 136, under no. 15.

Versions
Engraved
1. Cornelis Hubert van Meurs (active ca. 1675–78) after Caspar Netscher, Lucretia, engraving,
282 x 250 mm.

Versions and Copies
1. After Caspar Netscher, Lucretia, panel, 35.5 x 26.5 cm, Peter Hecht, Utrecht.
2. After Caspar Netscher, The History of Lucretia, panel, approx. 38.1 x 45.7 cm, sale, Lienau,Hamburg, 13–14 April 1790, no. 248 (for Sch. 8, to Johann Heinrich Schön).

3. Circle of Jacob Ochtervelt, Lucretia, panel, 30.5 x 25 cm, sale, Sotheby’s, London, 2011.
4. After Caspar Netscher, Lucretia, panel, 29.2 x 25.4 cm, sale, Duncan Macalester Loup et al.,Bosboom, The Hague, 20 August 1806, no. 193 (for 23.5 florins, to Pieter Joseph Thijs).

5. Variant copy by Toussaint Gelton, Lucretia, 1671, panel, Ham House, Surrey (NationalTrust).

Versions Notes© 2017 The Leiden CollectionPowered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

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Technical Summary
The support, a single plank of vertically grained, rectangular oak, has bevels on all four sides.[1]The panel is unthinned and uncradled and has machine tool marks and three red wax seals but
no import stamps or panel maker’s marks.
A red-brown ground has been thinly and evenly applied followed by a blue-gray layer. The painthas been thinly and smoothly applied with no use of impasto but with low brush markings along
the swags of drapery, garment folds, and dagger contours.
No underdrawing is readily apparent in infrared images captured at 780–1000 nanometers, andno compositional changes are noted aside from slight shifts in the position of Lucretia’s proper
left pinky and the contour of her proper right thumb.
The painting is unsigned and undated. A false Jacob Ochtervelt signature and 1676 date wereremoved during a past conservation treatment.[2]The painting was cleaned and restored in 1999 prior to its acquisition in 2005. The painting
remains in a good state of preservation.

Technical Summary Endnotes

1. The characterization of the wood is based on visual examination only.
2. According to documents provided by Sara Smith, collections manager, The LeidenCollection. The restorer is not named, and this painting is not included on the list of paintings
restored for the Gallery by Nancy Krieg in New York.

© 2017 The Leiden Collection