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Death of Lucretia
Frans van Mieris(Leiden 1635 – 1681 Leiden)1679
oil on panel with arched top
38.2 x 26.7 cm
signed and dated in dark paint, front surface ofstone ledge, lower left quadrant: “Fran Mieris
1679 / Lig. Basta.”
FM-103

How to cite
Buvelot, Quentin. “Death of Lucretia” (2017). In The Leiden Collection Catalogue, 3rd ed. Edited by Arthur K. Wheelock
Jr. and Lara Yeager-Crasselt. New York, 2020–23. https://www.theleidencollection.com/archive/ (archived December2023).
A PDF of every version of this entry is available in this Online Catalogue's Archive, and the Archive is managed by apermanent URL. New versions are added only when a substantive change to the narrative occurs.

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Painted in 1679, just two years before the artist’s untimely death at the age of forty-

Comparative Figuressix, Death of Lucretia is one of the finest paintings from the latter part of Frans van
Mieris’s extraordinary career. In this painting Van Mieris avoided the hard andenamel-like surface that characterizes so many of his late works;[1] instead, by
combining imperceptible brushstrokes and subtle details, he brought to life a dramafrom ancient Rome first recounted by Titus Livius (Livy) in his monumental
publication The History of Rome.[2] The circumstances surrounding Van Mieris’s
depiction of this subject are not known, but the care with which he executed thispainting (described below) indicates that he put inordinate effort into realizing his
remarkable interpretation of the discovery of Lucretia’s death.[3]Van Mieris could have consulted various Dutch translations of Livy while painting
this work.[4] Livy describes the story of Lucretia’s death as having taken place in

Fig 1. X-radiograph of FM-103

Rome in approximately 500 B.C., at the end of the Imperial Era. He describes how
Lucretia’s husband, the high-ranking soldier Tarquinius Collatinus, and several of his
fellow soldiers place wagers on which of them has the most beautiful wife. When
Tarquinius Collatinus wins the bet, Lucretia invites the men to dinner to thank themfor the honor. One of them, Sextus Tarquinius, is overwhelmed by Lucretia’s beauty.
In the middle of the night, he overpowers Lucretia in her sleep and rapes her. The
next morning, Lucretia’s husband and her father rush to her from their army camps,
each accompanied by a friend. After telling them what happened, she stabs herself inthe heart with a knife hidden inside her dress, hoping that her self-sacrifice will allow
her to escape disgrace. In her dying words she expresses the wish that no unchaste girlwill ever think of her as an exemplar of human behavior. Those present at her suicide
were dumbstruck. One of them, Lucius Junius Brutus, pulled the bloody knife out ofher body and swore to kill Sextus Tarquinius, his family, and all his descendants. This
vendetta led to a revolt that resulted in the founding of the Roman republic.[5]Paintings of the suicide of Lucretia by Northern Netherlandish artists are rather

Fig 2. Frans van Mieris the Elder, A
Sleeping Courtesan, 1669, oil on
copper, 27.5 x 22.5 cm, Galleria degli
Uffizi, Florence, inv. 1890, no.
1263, © 2015. Photo Scala, Florence,
courtesy of the Ministero Beni e Att.
Culturali

rare.[6] A painting that Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–69) made in 1664 shows Lucretia
on the point of plunging the knife into herself.[7] Like Rembrandt, Van Mieris
deviated in fundamental respects from Livy’s account. Both artists omit the four men
who rushed to Lucretia’s side, but Van Mieris also invented a scenario not describedby Livy: an old maidservant who discovers the heroine just after her
suicide.[8] Lucretia, whose partly exposed breast alludes to the rape, as does the bed
behind her, has slid off the chair, and all the color has drained from her face. No
blood flows from her body, but the knife with which she killed herself lies at her feet.
Her dog barks at her, thus reflecting, as it were, the old maidservant’s dismay.
The dramatic power of the scene of Lucretia’s suicide—the almost ineluctable fate of© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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the protagonist—is succinctly expressed in a play by the Dutch poet Jan Neuye (b.
1637), De gewroke Lucretia, of Romen in Vryheit (Lucretia Avenged, or Rome in
Liberty). Its title page carries the announcement that the play was performed in 1669

Fig 3. Frans van Mieris the Elder,
Doctor’s Visit, 1667, oil on panel, 44.5
x 31.1 cm, The J. Paul Getty Museum,
Los Angeles, inv. no. 86.PB.634

at the Amsterdam Municipal Theater.[9] Neuye’s play must have been a source ofinspiration for Van Mieris. In it, Lucretia laments: “My good name is quite lost. And
honor have I none . . . The court, the Council, and the People will surely suspect / My
virtue . . . I’ll seek a safer place.” Her father responds, “Whither would you fly?” andLucretia replies, “Where vengeance, fate, and love will lead me. / Come Father,
support me before my untimely fall.”[10] It must be noted, however, that in Neuye’splay Lucretia lies in her father’s arms, which is not the case in this picture. Van
Mieris adapted the story as he saw fit, so that this history painting resembles at firstglance his many genre pieces, a number of which highlight the contrast between
young and old.
In Van Mieris’s painting the old woman’s fierce reaction has a theatrical character.
She is rendered with great feeling for drama, her face contorted in anguish as she

Fig 4. Frans van Mieris the Elder, The
Letter Writer, 1680, oil on panel, 25 x
19.5 cm, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam,
SK-A-261

wrings her hands, distraught at her helplessness before the situation. The histrionicdespair of the hand-wringing, nearly toothless crone would not be out of place on alarge stage. Lucretia’s strikingly rendered curved arms are a deliberate attempt on thepart of the artist to express elegance and refinement. The interior, too—in which highceilinged corridors lead to more distant rooms, and architectural elements and lifesize statues in wall niches suggest a palatial, “antique” setting—could easily bethought of as stage scenery. The interior in the foreground would have seemed
modern to Van Mieris’s contemporaries, as it features furniture and tapestries theywould have found familiar.[11]Van Mieris paid a great deal of attention to the composition, as evidenced by astriking modification he made to the painting’s format presumably during the painting
process. As is evident an X-radiograph of the painting (fig 1), he enlarged his
painting by joining a smaller panel to the lower edge of the original panel (which isrounded at the top).[12] Initially, Van Mieris’s composition would have ended justbelow Lucretia’s knees, much as in a painting of 1669 in which the body of a sleeping
courtesan is rather abruptly cut by the bottom edge of the picture (fig 2).[13] Althoughunusual in its scope, such changes in composition and dimensions do exist in other ofhis paintings.[14]Van Mieris must have felt that the first conception of Death of Lucretia seemed too
compact, and wanted to add pictorial elements to give the painting a greater visual
power and pictorial context.[15] Because he used a different ground on the added
panel, some of the paint layers are slightly darker than those on the original panel.
This difference in tonality is discernible mainly in the satin of Lucretia’s clothing.
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The intervention underscores the extent to which Van Mieris was constantly seeking,even in his later works, to produce the perfect composition. One may well ask,
moreover, whether the young woman in the painting had originally been cast in therole of Lucretia; a change in the subject might explain the lack of blood and thepresence of the old maidservant.
The compositional character of Van Mieris’s painting is closely related to that of his
genre scenes.[16] The figural arrangement, for example, is comparable to that of his
Doctor’s Visit of 1667 (fig 3).[17] In that scene, an older maidservant attends to her
mistress, who has fallen from her chair in a faint. Another parallel exists with one of
Van Mieris’s drawings, Unwelcome News, ca. 1660, which portrays a woman who has
fainted in a pose similar to that of Lucretia. The maidservant who has rushed to her
her side wrings her hands and expresses a feeling of powerlessness, exactly like theold woman in the present painting.[18]The painter’s correspondence indicates that he preferred to paint subjects that hecould observe with his own eyes, which may help explain why he painted thishistorical subject in such a genre-like fashion.[19] A number of the elements in thepainting seem to have been based on studies from life. For example, the old woman
also appears in other late paintings by Van Mieris, such as Woman with a Lapdog,
Accompanied by a Maidservant of 1680 in the Leiden Collection (FM-105) and A
Woman Weeping of around 1678 in a private collection in England.[20] It is not
impossible that the model for this figure was actually a man; her face displays
similarities to male tronies painted by Van Mieris, an example being a recently
rediscovered painting of 1673.[21] The lute with a conspicuously broken string(perhaps an allusion to a life abruptly cut short) seems to have been one of thepainter’s own belongings. The same instrument recurs in other works, such as The
Letter Writer, a painting completed a year later, in 1680 (see FM-105, fig. 1).[22] The
dog, too, appears in an even earlier painting, made in 1678.[23] Evidently, Van Mieris
based this animal on a now unknown preparatory drawing.[24]The Death of Lucretia has an impressive provenance.[25] One of its previous owners
was Willem Lormier (1682–1758) of The Hague,[26] a well-known collector anddealer, whose seal with coat of arms is still on the back of the panel. This painting anda number of other important works were acquired from Lormier’s collection by his
nephew Adriaan Leonard van Heteren (1722–1800), a director of the Dutch West
India Company, who amassed a large art collection.[27] In 1809 Van Heteren’s entire
holdings ended up in the Koninklijk Museum (Royal Museum) in Amsterdam, theforerunner of the Rijksmuseum. Less than twenty years later, however, it was soldagain. In 1828 the director of the Koninklijk Museum, Cornelis Apostool(1762–1844), organized a public auction in Amsterdam of so-called doubles:© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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paintings that could be disposed of, because the museum had comparable works by
the same artists.[28] The sale catalogue described the painting as depicting “a Lady
dressed in satin, swooning and sinking to the ground as though dead, with her left
hand over a chair, a knife lying before her.”[29] By this time, evidently, the subject ofthe painting was no longer known.
The forty-six paintings sold at this auction fetched much more than expected, somuch more that Apostool felt obliged to defend his policy by declaring that thepaintings that had been sold were “not worthy” of being kept in the museum. A salient
detail is that the proceeds of the sale were used that same year to defray the cost of
Rembrandt’s Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp, which was installed, remarkably
enough, not in the Rijksmuseum but in the Mauritshuis in The Hague.[30] In 1828 orshortly thereafter, Death of Lucretia came into the possession of Johan Steengracht
van Oostkapelle (1782–1846), the first director of the Mauritshuis, who had a large
collection of his own. It remained with his descendants for decades, until it was again
sold at public auction in 1913, this time in Paris.[31] The number “44” on the back of
the panel still recalls this high-profile sale.[32] The painting then passed throughvarious European collections, after which it was purchased in 2002 for The Leiden
Collection, the first of the many Van Mieris paintings in this large and diverse
collection of the artist’s works.

- Quentin Buvelot, 2017

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Endnotes
1. See the remarks in Otto Naumann, Frans van Mieris (1635–1681) the Elder, 2 vols. (Doornspijk, 1981),
1:78–86.
2. This depiction is unusual in Van Mieris’s oeuvre because it is one of the few based on the history ofRome. For other examples, see Otto Naumann, Frans van Mieris (1635–1681) the Elder, 2 vols.
(Doornspijk, 1981), 1:92–94. In about 1670, Van Mieris painted Gyges Spying on the Wife of Candaules(Staatliches Museum, Schwerin; ibid., 2: no. 84), basing his work on a story told by Herodotus. Mercury
and Herse in a private collection (ibid., 2: no. D 19) proved to be an autograph work dated 1670 byFrans van Mieris; see Quentin Buvelot, ed., Frans van Mieris 1635–1681 (Exh. cat. The Hague,
Mauritshuis; Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art) (New Haven, 2005), 38, fig. 16, and 238, no.
129.
3. The alterations Van Mieris made to the panel, which are discussed in the text, explain the striking
location on the edge of the table of the painter’s signature and the date, “F van Mieris. 1679,” and an
inscription rarely used by the artist: “Lũg. Bata.” (Lugdunum Batavorum = Leiden). In Young Woman at
Her Toilet of 1667 (Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden), we find asimilar inscription, “Anno 1667. / Jǔnij / Lŭd. Bat. / F van Mieris. f.” The inscription highlighting Van
Mieris’s hometown of Leiden might have been placed there for a foreign buyer.
4. Jan Frans Vanderheijden, De Livius-vertaling van 1541 (Ghent, 1959), 5–19; Otto Naumann, Frans van
Mieris (1635–1681) the Elder, 2 vols. (Doornspijk, 1981), 2:122.
5. Livy, History of Rome, 1.58–59.
6. See Andor Pigler, Barockthemen: Eine Auswahl von Verzeichnissen zur Ikonographie des 17. und 18.
Jahrhunderts, 2 vols. (Budapest, 1974), 2: 406. A drawing of Lucretia committing suicide in thepresence of her husband and her father, convincingly attributed to Frans van Mieris’s son Jan (1660–90),
is in Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, MB 1988/T 13; see J. van Tatenhove and R. J. A. te
Rijdt. “Enkele tekeningen door Jan van Mieris (1660–1690),” Delineavit et Sculpsit (December 2007):
no. 31, 43–55, fig. 14. It is not related to the painting discussed here. Frans van Mieris’s other son,Willem (1662–1747), painted the subject in 1709 (see Otto Naumann, Frans van Mieris(1635–1681) the Elder, 2 vols. [Doornspijk, 1981], 2:121).
7. National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., 1937.1.76; see Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., The Collection of the
National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogues: Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century, (Washington,1995), 280–87, with a discussion of the possible interpretations of the subject in Dutch painting.
8. Otto Naumann, Frans van Mieris (1635–1681) the Elder, 2 vols. (Doornspijk, 1981), 1: 93–94, referredto Thomas Heywood’s play The Rape of Lucrece, published in London in 1608, which contains a scene
showing Lucretia and her maidservant before the former’s suicide; see Emily Detmer-Goebel, “WhatMore Could Women Do? Dramatizing Consent in Heywood’s Rape of Lucrece and Middleton’s Women© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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Beware Women,” Women’s Studies 36 (2007): 141–59.
9. Neuye, De gewroke Lucretia, of Romen in Vryheit. Rijxs-Treurspel (Amsterdam, 1669). The copy
consulted is in the National Library in The Hague, inv. 447 G 190.
10. The Dutch original reads as follows: “Mijn achtbaarheit is uit. Myn luister hebb’ ick niet. . . . My dunkt
dat ’t hof, de Raet en ’t volk in twijffel trekt / Mijn deugt. . . . Ick soek een veil’ger plaats”; “Waerwiltge
henen vlieden?” “Daermy de wraek, en ’t lot, en liefde sal gebieden. / Kom Vader, ondersteun my eer
ick plots ter neer.” Quoted from J. Neuye, De gewroke Lucretia, of Romen in Vryheit. Rijxs-Treurspel(Amsterdam, 1669), 34. Otto Naumann, Frans van Mieris (1635–1681) the Elder, 2 vols. (Doornspijk,
1981), 2:122, was the first to connect Neuye’s play to this painting.
11. Otto Naumann, Frans van Mieris (1635–1681) the Elder, 2 vols. (Doornspijk, 1981), 1:94. For the
Persian carpet, see Onno Ydema, Carpets and Their Datings in Netherlandish Paintings, 1540–1700(Leiden, 1991), 185, no. 795. Van Mieris was to reuse the dressing gown in a contemporary scene thefollowing year, The Letter Writer (Otto Naumann, Frans van Mieris (1635–1681) the Elder, 2 vols.
[Doornspijk, 1981], no. 118; see FM-105, fig. 1); see also Peter Sutton, ed., Love Letters: Dutch Genre
Painting in the Age of Vermeer (Exh. cat. Dublin, National Gallery of Ireland; Greenwich, Conn., Bruce
Museum of Arts and Sciences) (New Haven, 2003), no. 24.
12. Quentin Buvelot and Otto Naumann, “Format Changes by Frans van Mieris the Elder,” Burlington
Magazine 150 (February 2008): 102, 104.
13. Otto Naumann, Frans van Mieris (1635–1681) the Elder, 2 vols. (Doornspijk, 1981), 2: no. 75.
14. Various other artists of the Dutch Golden Age also extensively modified their paintings, among them
Pieter Codde (Mauritshuis, The Hague, inv. no. 445) and Gerrit Dou (including works in the Leiden
Collection). In Dou’s case, some alterations are autograph, whereas others are later additions; see Ronni
Baer, “Of Cats and Dogs: Domestic Pets in Rembrandt and Dou,” in Een kroniek voor Jeroen Giltaij, ed.
Jaap van der Veen and Friso Lammertse (Amsterdam, 2012), 67n16; Paulus Potter (Staatliches
Museum, Schwerin, inv. no. G 131; with thanks to Gero Seelig, Schwerin); and Godfried Schalcken(Mauritshuis, The Hague, inv. no. 162).
15. Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. has suggested that Van Mieris perhaps felt the need to make a major change tothe composition; instead of adding a piece to the panel, he may have cut off the bottom third of theoriginal panel and replaced it with a different piece (written communication to the author, 4 September2012).
16. As already pointed out in Otto Naumann, Frans van Mieris (1635–1681) the Elder, 2 vols. (Doornspijk,
1981), 1:83, and David Smith, “[Review of Otto Naumann, Frans van Mieris (1635–1681) the Elder, 2
vols. (Doornspijk, 1981)],” Art Bulletin 65, no. 4 (December 1983): 698.
17. Otto Naumann, Frans van Mieris (1635–1681) the Elder, 2 vols. (Doornspijk, 1981), 1: 83, 2: no. 71-I;
Quentin Buvelot, ed., Frans van Mieris 1635–1681 (Exh. cat. The Hague, Mauritshuis; Washington
D.C., National Gallery of Art) (New Haven, 2005), no. 40.
18. For the drawing, see Otto Naumann, “Frans van Mieris as a Draughtsman,” Master Drawings, 16, no. 1,© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Death of Lucretia
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1978, 28, no. 14; Quentin Buvelot, ed., Frans van Mieris 1635–1681 (Exh. cat. The Hague, Mauritshuis;
Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art) (New Haven, 2005), 139–41, no. 23, repr.
19. In 1675 Cosimo III de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany wanted Van Mieris to paint an image of SaintFrancis Xavier preaching in the Far East, but Van Mieris refused because he only wanted to paintsomething that he could see in nature; Otto Naumann, Frans van Mieris (1635–1681) the Elder, 2 vols.
(Doornspijk, 1981), 1: 185; see also Peter Hecht, De Hollandse fijnschilders: van Gerard Dou tot
Adriaen van der Werff (Exh. cat. Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum) (The Hague, 1989), 234 n. 1.
20. Otto Naumann, Frans van Mieris (1635–1681) the Elder, 2 vols. (Doornspijk, 1981), no. 115; Quentin
Buvelot, ed., Frans van Mieris 1635–1681 (Exh. cat. The Hague, Mauritshuis; Washington D.C.,
National Gallery of Art) (New Haven, 2005), 53, fig. 10.
21. Quentin Buvelot, ed., Frans van Mieris 1635–1681 (Exh. cat. The Hague, Mauritshuis; Washington
D.C., National Gallery of Art) (New Haven, 2005), 168, fig. 34a, and 238, no. 130; Peter C. Sutton, The
Hohenbuchau Collection: Dutch and Flemish Paintings from the Golden Age (Exh. cat. Vienna,
Liechtenstein Museum) (Vienna, 2011), 272–75, no. 56.
22. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam; Otto Naumann, Frans van Mieris (1635–1681) the Elder, 2 vols.
(Doornspijk, 1981), no. 118; Quentin Buvelot, ed., Frans van Mieris 1635–1681 (Exh. cat. The Hague,
Mauritshuis; Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art) (New Haven, 2005), no. 48.
23. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, SK-C-184; Otto Naumann, Frans van Mieris (1635–1681) the Elder, 2 vols.
(Doornspijk, 1981), no. 113.
24. Otto Naumann, Frans van Mieris (1635–1681) the Elder, 2 vols. (Doornspijk, 1981), 1:83; see also
Quentin Buvelot, ed., Frans van Mieris 1635–1681 (Exh. cat. The Hague, Mauritshuis; Washington
D.C., National Gallery of Art) (New Haven, 2005), 142.
25. For almost a century, from 1738 until 1828, The Death of Lucretia belonged to the same collection as
another work by Van Mieris, Woman Tuning a Theorbo, With a Company in the Background, signed anddated 1665 (Otto Naumann, Frans van Mieris (1635–1681) the Elder, 2 vols. [Doornspijk, 1981], no.
119), which remained in the Rijksmuseum (cf. Ernst Wilhelm Moes and Eduard van Biema, De
National Konst-Gallery en het Koninklijk Museum [Amsterdam, 1909], 193). The popularity of The
Death of Lucretia is demonstrated by the existence of a number of painted and drawn copies (seeVersions).
26. For Lormier, see Everhard Korthals Altes, “The Eighteenth-Century Gentleman Dealer Willem Lormierand the International Dispersal of Seventeenth-Century Dutch Paintings,” Simiolus 28, no. 4 (2000–1):
251–311 (reprinted in Dutch in Everhard Korthals Altes, De verovering van de internationale kunstmarkt
door de zeventiende-eeuwse schilderkunst: Enkele studies over de verspreiding van Hollandse schilderijen inde eerste helft van de achttiende eeuw [Leiden, 2003], 48–121).
27. On the Van Heteren Gevers Collection, see Th. Verroen, Inventarisatie en documentatie vanstraatmeubilair uit de periode van de Amsterdamse School (Amsterdam, 1985), and Eva Geudeker, “Het
Kabinet Van Heteren Gevers: Een achttiende-eeuwse schilderijenverzameling “’waarvan de rénommee© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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zo groot ims,’” 2 vols. (PhD diss. University of Amsterdam, 2005).
28. For the 1828 sale, see Jan Piet Filedt Kok, “The 1828 Sale of Paintings from the Rijksmuseum,” The
Rijksmuseum Bulletin 57 (2009): 283–311.
29. The Dutch original reads: “Eene in het satijn gekleede Dame, in bezwijming en als stervende op den
grond gezegen, leunende met de linkerhand over eene stoel, voor haar ligt een mes.” See Catalogus vaneene uitgebreide en voortreffelijke verzameling zeer fraaije schilderijen, waaronder veel door devoornaamste Nederlandsche Meesters (Sales cat. Amsterdam, De Vries et al., 4 August 1828), 18, no. 88,
and Jan Piet Filedt Kok, “The 1828 Sale of Paintings from the Rijksmuseum,” The Rijksmuseum
Bulletin 57 (2009): 302.
30. For the supposed unworthiness of the paintings put up for sale, see Ellinoor Bergvelt, Pantheon der
Gouden Eeuw: Van Nationale Konst-Gallerij tot Rijksmuseum van Schilderijen (1798–1896) (Zwolle,
1998), 114–16. The forty-six paintings fetched 22,701 guilders and 25 cents. The Royal Picture Gallery
Mauritshuis also sold paintings at this auction, but the proceeds from these were considerably less.
31. On the Steengracht Collection, see Quentin Buvelot, “Oude meesters in Den Haag,” in Annette de Vries
and Quentin Buvelot, Passie voor schilderijen: De verzameling Steengracht van Duivenvoorde(Voorschoten and Leiden, 2012), 36–55, and “Catalogus verzameling Steengracht van Duivenvoorde:
Oude meesters in Den Haag,” in ibid., 84–109, nos. 1–90.
32. A clipping from the sale catalogue is still glued to the back of the panel.

ProvenanceThomas François Joseph (1647–1738), Count of Fraula, Brussels (his sale, Brussels, 21 July 1738, no.
245 [for 700 francs]).[1]Gerard Bicker van Zwieten II (1687–1753), The Hague, by 1738 (his sale, The Hague, 12 April 1741,
no. 50 [through Jacques de Roore for Willem Lormier for 960 guilders]).[2]Willem Lormier (1682–1758), The Hague, by 1741 (his sale, The Hague, 4 July 1763, no. 166 [toAdriaan Leonard van Heteren for 625 guilders]).
Adriaan Leonard van Heteren (1722–1800), The Hague, by 1763; by descent to Adriaan Leonard van
Heteren Gevers (1794–1866), Rotterdam; through Cornelis Apostool to the Royal Museum.
The Royal Museum, Amsterdam, 1809 (sale, Royal Museum, Amsterdam, 4 August 1828, no. 88 [toC.S. Roos for 490 guilders]).
C.S. Roos, Amsterdam.
Johan Steengracht van Oostkapelle (1782–1846), The Hague; by descent to his grandson, Hendrik
Adolphus Steengracht van Duivenvoorde (1836–1912), The Hague (his sale, Galerie G. Petit, Paris, 9June 1913, 60, no. 44 [to Bousquet for 3,100 francs]).
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Death of Lucretia
Page 11 of 16(Sale, Ader, Picard and Tajan, Paris, 8 December 1977, no. 25 [to Keyer].)(Sale, Sotheby’s, London, 16 April 1980, no. 57).
[Gallery Pieter de Boer, Amsterdam, by April 1983].
Private collection, Sweden.
[Johnny Van Haeften Ltd., London; to Saul P. Steinberg.]
Saul P. Steinberg (1939–2012), New York [to Richard L. Feigen & Co.].[3][Richard L. Feigen & Co., New York, April 2000; to Johnny Van Haeften Ltd.].
[Johnny Van Haeften Ltd., London, November 2000; to Otto Naumann Ltd.].
[Otto Naumann Ltd., New York, March 2002].
From whom acquired by the present owner in 2003.

Provenance Notes

1. Caspar Netscher’s Lucretia, now in The Leiden Collection, was also formerly in the collection ofThomas François Joseph, Count of Fraula, and sold in his 1738 sale.
2. Frans van Mieris’s A Young Woman Writing a Letter, now in The Leiden Collection, was also formerly inthe collection of Gerard Bicker van Zwieten II.
3. Rembrandt van Rijn’s Bust of a Bearded Old Man, now in The Leiden Collection, was also formerly inthe collection of Saul P. Steinberg.

Exhibition History
London, Johnny van Haeften Ltd., “Dutch and Flemish Old Master Paintings,” 2002, no. 19.
Greenwich, Conn., Bruce Museum of Arts and Science, “Pleasures of Collecting: Part I, Renaissance to
Impressionist Masterpieces,” 21 September 2002–5 January 2003 [lent by Otto Naumann Ltd.].
The Hague, Mauritshuis, “Frans van Mieris 1635–1681: Painted Perfection,” 1 October 2005–22
January 2006, no. 47 [lent by the present owner].
Washington, National Gallery of Art, “Amorous Intrigues and Painterly Refinement: The Art of Frans
van Mieris,” 26 February–21 May 2006, no. 47 [lent by the present owner].
Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum, “Emotions: Pain and Pleasure in Dutch Painting of the Golden Age,” 11October 2–15 February 2015, no 31 [lent by the present owner].
Beijing, National Museum of China, “Rembrandt and His Time: Masterpieces from The Leiden
Collection,” 17 June–3 September 2017, no. 38 [lent by the present owner].
Shanghai, Long Museum, West Bund, “Rembrandt, Vermeer and Hals in the Dutch Golden Age:
Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection,” 23 September 2017–25 February 2018, no. 38 [lent by the© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Death of Lucretia
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present owner].
Moscow, The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, “The Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer: Masterpiecesof The Leiden Collection,” 28 March 2018–22 July 2018, no. 39 [lent by the present owner].
St. Petersburg, The State Hermitage Museum, “The Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer: Masterpieces of
The Leiden Collection,” 5 September 2018–13 January 2019, no. 39 [lent by the present owner].
Abu Dhabi, Louvre Abu Dhabi, “Rembrandt, Vermeer and the Dutch Golden Age. Masterpieces fromThe Leiden Collection and the Musée du Louvre,” 14 February–18 May 2019, no. 70 [lent by thepresent owner].
Amsterdam, Hermitage Amsterdam, “Rembrandt and his Contemporaries: History Paintings from The
Leiden Collection,” 4 February–27 August 2023, no. 20 [lent by the present owner].

References
Catalogus van Schilderyen van den heer Agent Willem Lormier in ‘s Gravehage. The Hague, 1752, 17, no.
194.
Hoet, Gerard. Catalogus of Naamlyst van Schilderyen, met derzelver pryzen, zedert een langen reeks vanjaaren zoo. The Hague, 1752, 2: 431.
Descamps, Jean Baptiste. La vie des peintres flamands, allemands et hollandois: avec des portraits gravésen taille-douce, une indication de leurs principaux ouvrages & des réflexions sur leurs différentes
manières. Paris, 1760, 3: 21.
Terwestern, Pieter. Catalogus of naamlyst met derzelven prijzen. The Hague, 1770, 3: 324, no. 166.
Apostool, Cornelis. Catalogus der Schilderijen, oudheden enz. op het Koninklijk Museum te Amsterdam.
Amsterdam, 1809, no. 201.
Smith, John. A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish and French
Painters. London, 1829, 1: 65, no. 10.
Moes, Ernst Wilhelm, and Eduard van Biema. De National Konst-Gallery en het Koninklijk Museum.
Amsterdam, 1909, 148, no. 63, 162, no. 201, 193.
Lafenestre, Georges, and Eugène Richtenberger. La peinture en Europe: La Hollande. Paris, 1910, 158.
Von Wurzbach, Alfred. Niederländisches Künstler-Lexikon:Auf Grund Archivalischer Forschungen
Bearbeitet. Vienna, 1910, 2: 165.
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. Edited and translated by Edward G. Hawke.
London, 1928, 10: 7, no. 29.
Pigler, Andor. Barockthemen: eine Auswahl von Verzeichnissen zur Ikonographie des 17. und
18. Jahrhunderts. Budapest, 1974, 2: 406.
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Naumann, Otto. Fransvan

Mieris(1635–1681)

theElder.

Doornspijk,

1981,

1:

83,

86,

93–94;

120–22, no. 116, fig. 116, 116a, 116a–d.
Smith, David. “[Review of Otto Naumann, Frans van Mieris (1635–1681) the Elder, 2 vols. (Doornspijk,
1981)].” Art Bulletin 65, no. 4 (December 1983): 698.
Hecht, Peter, ed. De Hollandse fijnschilders van Gerard Dou tot Adriaen van der Werff. Exh. cat.
Amsterdam, Rijkmuseum. Amsterdam, 1989, 116n5, 138n2, 234, no. 1, 237, fig. 51a.
Ydema, Onno. Carpets and Their Dating in Netherlandish Painting, 1540–1700. Leiden, 1991, 102, 103,
185, no. 795.
Liedtke, Walter, ed. Masterworks from the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lille. Exh. cat. New York,
Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1992, 108.
Bergvelt, Elinoor. Pantheon der Gouden Eeuw: Van National Konst-Gallerij tot Rijksmuseum van
Schilderijen (1798–1896). Zwolle, 1998, 399, nos. 1809–63.
Korthals Altes, Everhard. “The Eighteenth-Century Gentleman Dealer Willem Lormier and theInternational Dispersal of Seventeenth-Century Dutch Paintings.” Simiolus 28, no. 4 (2000–1): 264n48.
Hale, Meredith. “Death of Lucretia.” In Dutch and Flemish Old Master Paintings. Sales cat., Johnny van
Haeften, Ltd. London, 2002, no. 19.
Sutton, Peter C., ed. Pleasures of Collecting. Exh. cat. Greenwich, Conn., Bruce Museum of Arts andSciences. Greenwich, 2002, 7, 30, fig. 31, 84.
Sutton, Peter C., Lisa Vergara, and Ann Jensen Adams. Love Letters: Dutch Genre Painting in the Age ofVermeer. Exh. cat. Dublin, National Gallery of Ireland; Greenwich, Conn., Bruce Museum of Arts andSciences. New Haven, 2003, 142.
Buvelot, Quentin, Otto Naumann, and Eddy de Jongh. Frans van Mieris 1635–1681. Edited by Quentin
Buvelot, 34, 37, 42, 56, 139, 207–9, no. 47, 223, 230, no. 47. Exh. cat. The Hague, Mauritshuis;
Washington, National Gallery of Art. Zwolle, 2005.
Buvelot, Quentin and Otto Naumann. “Format Changes by Frans van Mieris the Elder.” Burlington
Magazine 150 (February 2008): 102, 104, fig. 40.
Wuestman, Gerdien. “C.H. van Meurs and his fijnschilder prints: a mysterious printmaker with aforgotten oeuvre.” Simiolus 37, no. 2 (2013–14): 125n28, 132–33.
Schwartz, Gary. “The Death of Lucretia”. In Emotions: Pain and Pleasure in Dutch Painting of theGolden Age. Edited by Gary Schwartz, 118, no. 31. Exh. cat. Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum. Rotterdam,
2014.
Buvelot, Quentin. “‘Expanding Panels’: Format Changes in Paintings on Panel by Schalcken and Other
Dutch Fijnschilders.” Wallraf-Richartz-Jarbuch 77 (2016): 159–76.
Yeager-Crasselt, Lara. “Rembrandt and His Time: China and the Dutch Republic in the Golden Age.” In
Rembrandt and His Time: Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection. Edited by Lara Yeager-Crasselt.
Translated by Li Ying, 10; 14 fig. 7. Exh. cat. Beijing, National Museum of China. Beijing, 2017.
Yeager-Crasselt, Lara, and Alexa McCarthy. “Death of Lucretia.” In Rembrandt and His Time:© 2024 The Leiden Collection2:

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Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection. Edited by Lara Yeager-Crasselt. Translated by Li Ying, 96–97;
181, no. 38. Exh. cat. Beijing, National Museum of China. Beijing, 2017.
Yeager-Crasselt, Lara. “Rembrandt and His Time: China and the Dutch Republic in the Golden Age.” In
Rembrandt, Vermeer and Hals in the Dutch Golden Age: Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection. Exh.
cat. Shanghai, Long Museum, West Bund. Shanghai, 2017, 33, fig. 7.
Long Museum, West Bund. Rembrandt, Vermeer and Hals in the Dutch Golden Age: Masterpieces fromThe Leiden Collection. Exh. cat. Shanghai, Long Museum, West Bund. Shanghai, 2017, 112–13.
Yeager-Crasselt, Lara. “The Leiden Collection and the Dutch Golden Age.” In The Age of Rembrandt
and Vermeer: Masterpieces of The Leiden Collection. Edited by Polina Lyubimova. Translated by Daria
Babich and Daria Kuzina, 17, 25; 29, 33. Exh. cat. Moscow, The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts;
St. Petersburg, The State Hermitage Museum. Moscow, 2018.
Yeager-Crasselt, Lara and Alexa McCarthy. “Death of Lucretia.” In The Age of Rembrandt andVermeer: Masterpieces of The Leiden Collection. Edited by Polina Lyubimova. Translated by Daria
Babich and Daria Kuzina, 144–45; 239, no. 39. Exh. cat. Moscow, The Pushkin State Museum of Fine
Arts; St. Petersburg, The State Hermitage Museum. Moscow, 2018.
Yeager-Crasselt, Lara. “The Leiden Collection and the Dutch Golden Age.” In Rembrandt, Vermeer andthe Dutch Golden Age. Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection and the Musée du Louvre. Edited by
Blaise Ducos and Lara Yeager-Crasselt, 25, 30. Exh. cat. Abu Dhabi, Louvre Abu Dhabi. London, 2019.
[Exhibition catalogue also published in French and Arabic.]
Blanc, Jan. “Being Modern, Being Dutch: The Seventeenth-Century Invention of the Golden Age.” In
Rembrandt, Vermeer and the Dutch Golden Age. Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection and the Muséedu Louvre. Edited by Blaise Ducos and Lara Yeager-Crasselt, 43. Exh. cat. Abu Dhabi, Louvre Abu
Dhabi. London, 2019. [Exhibition catalogue also published in French and Arabic.]
Ducos, Blaise, and Lara Yeager-Crasselt, eds. Rembrandt, Vermeer and the Dutch Golden Age.
Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection and the Musée du Louvre. Exh. cat. Abu Dhabi, Louvre Abu
Dhabi. London, 2019, 148, 150, no. 70. [Exhibition catalogue also published in French and Arabic.]
Wheelock, Arthur K., Jr., Christiaan Vogelaar, and Caroline van Cauwenberge. Rembrandt and His
Contemporaries: History Paintings from The Leiden Collection. Exh. cat. Amsterdam, Hermitage
Amsterdam. Zwolle, 2023, 94–95, no. 20. [Exhibition catalogue also published in Dutch.]

Versions
Versions
1. Willem van Mieris, after Frans van Mieris, The Death of Lucretia, n.d., oil on panel with arched top, 38
x 17 cm, previous sale, Sotheby’s, London, 16 April 1980, no. 57.

2. Frans van Mieris, The Death of Lucretia,d., oil on panel, 38.1 x 40.6 cm, previous sale, Christie’s,© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Death of Lucretia
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London, 28 April 1933, no. 114.

3. After Frans van Mieris, The Death of Lucretia, n.d., medium unknown, 30.5 x 25.4 cm; previous sale,
Edwards, London, 25 November 1802, no. 22.

4. After Frans van Mieris, The Death of Lucretia, n.d., medium and dimensions unknown, previously
François Tronchin (1704–98), Geneva.

5. Tamboer, after Frans van Mieris, The Death of Lucretia, drawing, previous sale, J. Vollenhoven et al.,Amsterdam, 11 February 1822, no. 30.

Print
1. Cornelis-Henricus van Meurs (b. 1680), after Frans van Mieris, The Death of Lucretia, etching,dimensions unknown, Bibliotheca Regia, Vienna.[1]Versions Notes

1. Cornelis-Henricus van Meurs also etched the following paintings in The Leiden Collection: Frans van
Mieris, Woman Reading and a Man Seated at a Table, probably 1676; Caspar Netscher, Lucretia, ca.
1665–67; and Gerrit Dou, A Young Woman Playing a Clavichord, ca. 1665.

Technical Summary
The support is a rectangular-shaped composite panel with an arched upper edge composed of two verticallygrained oak planks.[1] Four metal pins secure the horizontal panel join, which extends across Lucretia’s bent
knees. The lower plank was added to allow the artist to extend the lower edge of the composition.[2]The composite panel has been thinned and marouflaged to an oak panel with bevels on all four sides andmachine toolmarks along the reverse. The three oak planks have not been analyzed using dendrochronology;
however, the marouflage panel and lower panel are remarkably similar and may originate from the sameplank and may have been added at the same time.[3] On the reverse is a red wax collection seal and three oldpaper labels but no import stamps, stencils or panel maker’s mark.
The white ground along the upper plank is radio-opaque while the white ground along the lower plank is nonradio-opaque, which indicates they are different grounds. A dark underpaint applied along the lower plankgives the lower portion of the composition a darker appearance than the upper portion, which accentuates thehorizontal panel join. The image was constructed in successive thin layers with low brushmarking andtransparent glazing. The contours of the forms are slightly raised.
No underdrawing is readily apparent in infrared images captured at 780–1530 nanometers. The images reveal
a white opaque form that initially hung below the drapery drawn back along the bedframe above the left
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Death of Lucretia
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portion of the backrest of the chair. This form extended through the seatback and Lucretia’s proper left
upper arm.[4] In raking light, a subtle S-shaped line of raised paint above the backrest of Lucretia’s chair
indicates an additional compositional change.
The painting is signed and dated in dark paint along the front surface of the ledge along the lower left
quadrant of the upper plank.
The painting has not undergone conservation treatment since its acquisition and remains in a good state ofpreservation.

Technical Summary Endnotes

1. The characterization of the wood is based on visual examination of the X-radiograph and panel reverse
images by Ian Tyers. According to Tyers, the curved edge of the upper plank and the lower edge of thelower plank both have good potential for dendrochronology.
2. Quentin Buvelot and Otto Naumann, “Format Changes in Paintings by Frans van Mieris the Elder,”Burlington Magazine 150 (February 2008): 102–4, fig. 40.
3. According to Ian Tyers.
4. This was revealed in images captured with a Hamamatsu Vidicon camera at 1280–1530 nanometers byJohn Twilley, but not in infrared images captured at 780–1000 nanometers.

© 2024 The Leiden Collection