© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Death of Lucretia
Page 2 of 16

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 surfaceof stone ledge, lower left quadrant: “FranMieris 1679 / Lig. Basta.”
FM-103

How to cite
Buvelot, Quentin. “Death of Lucretia” (2017). In The Leiden Collection Catalogue, 2nd ed. Edited by Arthur K.
Wheelock Jr. New York, 2017–20. https://theleidencollection.com/artwork/the-death-of-lucretia/ (archived May2020).
A PDF of every version of this entry is available in this Online Catalogue's Archive, and the Archive ismanaged by a permanent URL. New versions are added only when a substantive change to the narrative
occurs.

© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Death of Lucretia
Page 3 of 16

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

Comparative Figuresof forty-six, Death of Lucretia is one of the finest paintings from the latter partof Frans van Mieris’s extraordinary career. In this painting Van Mieris
avoided the hard and enamel-like surface that characterizes so many of his
late works;[1] instead, by combining imperceptible brushstrokes and subtle
details, he brought to life a drama from 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 notknown, but the care with which he executed this painting (described below)
indicates that he put inordinate effort into realizing his remarkableinterpretation of the discovery of Lucretia’s death.[3]Van Mieris could have consulted various Dutch translations of Livy while

Fig 1. X-radiograph of FM-103

painting this work.[4] Livy describes the story of Lucretia’s death as having
taken place in 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 them for the honor. Oneof 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 in the heart with a knife hidden inside her dress, hopingthat her self-sacrifice will allow her to escape disgrace. In her dying words
she expresses the wish that no unchaste girl will 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 of her bodyFig 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

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 arerather 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 described by Livy: an oldmaidservant 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© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Death of Lucretia
Page 4 of 16

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 oldmaidservant’s dismay.

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

The dramatic power of the scene of Lucretia’s suicide—the almost ineluctablefate of 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
[9]

Theater.

was

performed

in

1669

at

the

Amsterdam

Municipal

Neuye’s play must have been a source of inspiration 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?” and Lucretia 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’s play 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 first glance his many genre pieces, a

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

number of which highlight the contrast between young and old.
In Van Mieris’s painting the old woman’s fierce reaction has a theatricalcharacter. She is rendered with great feeling for drama, her face contorted in
anguish as she wrings her hands, distraught at her helplessness before thesituation. The histrionic despair of the hand-wringing, nearly toothless crone
would not be out of place on a large stage. Lucretia’s strikingly rendered
curved arms are a deliberate attempt on the part of the artist to express
elegance and refinement. The interior, too—in which high-ceilinged corridors
lead to more distant rooms, and architectural elements and life-size statues
in wall niches suggest a palatial, “antique” setting—could easily be thought ofas 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 bya striking 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 theoriginal panel (which is rounded at the top).[12] Initially, Van Mieris’s
composition would have ended just below Lucretia’s knees, much as in apainting of 1669 in which the body of a sleeping courtesan is rather abruptly
cut by the bottom edge of the picture (fig 2).[13] Although unusual in its© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Death of Lucretia
Page 5 of 16

scope, such changes in composition and dimensions do exist in other of his
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 thepainting 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. 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 castin the role of Lucretia; a change in the subject might explain the lack of bloodand the presence of the old maidservant.
The compositional character of Van Mieris’s painting is closely related tothat of his genre scenes.[16] The figural arrangement, for example, iscomparable to that of his Doctor’s Visit of 1667 (fig 3).[17] In that scene, anolder 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 tothat of Lucretia. The maidservant who has rushed to her her side wrings her
hands and expresses a feeling of powerlessness, exactly like the old woman
in the present painting.[18]The painter’s correspondence indicates that he preferred to paint subjects
that he could observe with his own eyes, which may help explain why hepainted this historical subject in such a genre-like fashion.[19] A number of theelements in the painting 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 thisfigure was actually a man; her face displays similarities to male tronies
painted by Van Mieris, an example being a recently rediscovered painting of1673.[21] The lute with a conspicuously broken string (perhaps an allusion toa life abruptly cut short) seems to have been one of the painter’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]© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Death of Lucretia
Page 6 of 16

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 and dealer, whose seal with coat of arms is still on the back of thepanel. This painting and a 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 alarge art collection.[27] In 1809 Van Heteren’s entire holdings ended up in the
Koninklijk Museum (Royal Museum) in Amsterdam, the forerunner of the
Rijksmuseum. Less than twenty years later, however, it was sold again. In
1828 the director of the Koninklijk Museum, Cornelis Apostool (1762–1844),
organized a public auction in Amsterdam of so-called doubles: paintings that
could be disposed of, because the museum had comparable works by thesame artists.[28] The sale catalogue described the painting as depicting “aLady 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 of the painting was no longer known.
The forty-six paintings sold at this auction fetched much more than expected,
so much more that Apostool felt obliged to defend his policy by declaring thatthe paintings that had been sold were “not worthy” of being kept in themuseum. A salient detail is that the proceeds of the sale were used thatsame 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 or shortly
thereafter, Death of Lucretia came into the possession of Johan Steengracht
van Oostkapelle (1782–1846), the first director of the Mauritshuis, who had alarge 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 through various European collections, after
which it was purchased in 2002 for The Leiden Collection, the first of themany Van Mieris paintings in this large and diverse collection of the artist’s
works.

- Quentin Buvelot, 2017

© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Death of Lucretia
Page 7 of 16

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 thehistory of Rome. 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 Spyingon the Wife of Candaules (Staatliches Museum, Schwerin; ibid., 2: no. 84), basing his workon 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 by Frans 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: “L?g. Bata.” (Lugdunum
Batavorum = Leiden). In Young Woman at Her Toilet of 1667 (Staatliche Kunstsammlungen,Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden), we find a similar inscription, “Anno 1667. / J?nij /L?d. 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 the presence 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 thesubject 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 theSeventeenth 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,© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Death of Lucretia
Page 8 of 16referred to 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, “What More Could Women Do? Dramatizing Consent in
Heywood’s Rape of Lucrece and Middleton’s Women 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 acontemporary scene the following 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 alsoPeter 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 majorchange to the composition; instead of adding a piece to the panel, he may have cut off thebottom third of the original panel and replaced it with a different piece (written communication
to the author, 4 September 2012).
© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Death of Lucretia
Page 9 of 16

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, 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 imageof Saint Francis Xavier preaching in the Far East, but Van Mieris refused because he only
wanted to paint something 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 theGolden 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; seealso 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 samecollection as another work by Van Mieris, Woman Tuning a Theorbo, With a Company in the
Background, signed and dated 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© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Death of Lucretia
Page 10 of 16[Amsterdam, 1909], 193). The popularity of The Death of Lucretia is demonstrated by theexistence of a number of painted and drawn copies (see Versions).
26. For Lormier, see Everhard Korthals Altes, “The Eighteenth-Century Gentleman Dealer Willem
Lormier and the International Dispersal of Seventeenth-Century Dutch Paintings,” Simiolus
28, no. 4 (2000–1): 251–311 (reprinted in Dutch in Everhard Korthals Altes, De veroveringvan de internationale kunstmarkt door de zeventiende-eeuwse schilderkunst: Enkele studies
over de verspreiding van Hollandse schilderijen in de 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

KabinetVan

HeterenGevers:Eenachttiende-eeuwse

schilderijenverzameling “’waarvan de rénommee zo groot ims,’” 2 vols. (PhD diss. Universityof 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 van eene uitgebreide en voortreffelijke verzameling zeer fraaije schilderijen,
waaronder veel door de voornaamste Nederlandsche Meesters (Sales cat. Amsterdam, De
Vries et al., 4 August 1828), 18, no. 88, and Jan Piet Filedt Kok, “The 1828 Sale of Paintingsfrom 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 theproceeds from these were considerably less.
31. On the Steengracht Collection, see Quentin Buvelot, “Oude meesters in Den Haag,” inAnnette 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.

ProvenanceCount of Fraula, Brussels (his sale, Brussels, 21 July 1738, no. 245 [700 francs]).
Gerard Bicker van Zwieten, The Hague, by 1738 (his sale, The Hague, 12 April 1741, no. 50© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Death of Lucretia
Page 11 of 16[960 to Jacques de Roore for Willem Lormier]).
Willem Lormier (1682–1758), The Hague, by 1741 (his sale, The Hague, 4 July 1763, no. 166[625 guilders to Adriaan Leonard van Heteren]).
Adriaan Leonard van Heteren (1722–1800), The Hague, by 1763; by descent to Adriaan
Leonard van Heteren Gevers (1794–1866), Rotterdam, by 1800.
The Royal Museum, Amsterdam, by 1809 (sale, Royal Museum, Amsterdam, 4 August 1828,
no. 88 [490 guilders to C. S. Roos]).
C. S. Roos, Amsterdam.
Steengracht Collection, The Hague, acquired by Johan Steengracht van Oostkapelle(1782–1846); by descent to Hendrik Steengracht van Oosterland (1808–75), The Hague; bydescent to Hendrik Adolphus Steengracht van Duivenvoorde (1836–1912), The Hague (hissale, Paris, Galerie G. Petit, 9 June 1913, 60, no. 44 [3,100 francs to Bousquet]).
Unknown collection (sale, Paris, Ader, Picard and Tajan, 8 December 1977, no. 25 [to Mr.
Keyer]).
Mr. Keyer.
(Sale, Sotheby’s Parke Bernet, London, 16 April 1980, no. 57).
[Gallery Pieter de Boer, Amsterdam, by April, 1983].
Private collection, Sweden.
Saul Steinberg, New York, until 2000 [Richard L. Feigen & Co., New York, by April, 2000;
Johnny van Haeften Ltd., London, by November, 2000; Otto Naumann Ltd., New York, byMarch, 2002].
From whom acquired by the present owner in 2003.

Exhibition History
London, Johnny van Haeften Ltd., “Dutch and Flemish Old Master Paintings,” 2002, no. 19
Greenwich, CT, Bruce Museum of Arts and Science, “Pleasures of Collecting: Part I,
Renaissance to Impressionist Masterpieces,” 21 September 2002–5 January 2003, [nonumber, lent by private collection].
The Hague, Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis, “Frans van Mieris 1635–1681: Painted
Perfection,” 1 October 2005–22 January 2006 [lent by the present owner].
Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art, “Amorous Intrigues and Painterly Refinement: The
Art of Frans van Mieris,” 26 February–21 May 2006 [lent by the present owner].
Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum, “Emotions: Pain and Pleasure in Dutch Painting of the Golden© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Death of Lucretia
Page 12 of 16Age,” 11 October 2–15 February 2015 [lent by the present owner].
Beijing, National Museum of China, “Rembrandt and His Time: Masterpieces from The
Leiden Collection,” 17 June–3 September 2017 [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 [lentby the present owner].
Moscow, The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, “The Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer:
Masterpieces of The Leiden Collection,” 28 March 2018–22 July 2018 [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 [lent by thepresent owner].
Abu Dhabi, Louvre Abu Dhabi, “Rembrandt, Vermeer and the Dutch Golden Age.
Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection and the Musée du Louvre,” 14 February–18 May
2019 [lent by the present owner].

References
Catalogus van Schilderyen van den heer agent Willem Lorimer in ‘s Gravehage. The Hague,
1752, 17, no. 194.
Hoet, Gerard. Catalogus of naamlyst van schilderyen, met derzelver pryzen, zedert een
langen reeks van jaaren zoo. 3 vols. The Hague, 1752, 2:431.
Descamps, Jean Baptiste. La vie des peintres flamands, allemands et hollandois: avec desportraits gravés en taille-douce, une indication de leurs principaux ouvrages & des réflexions
sur leurs différentes manières. 4 vols. Paris, 1753–64, 21.
Terwestern, Pieter. Catalogus of naamlyst met derzelven prijzen. 3 vols. 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 andFrench Painters. 9 vols. London, 1829–42, 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© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Death of Lucretia
Page 13 of 16

Forschungen Bearbeitet. 3 vols. Vienna and Liepzig, 1906–11, 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 translatedby Edward G. Hawke, 10: 7, no. 29. 8 vols. London, 1907–28. Originally published as
Beschreibendes und kritisches Verzeichnis der Werke der hervorragendsten höllandischen
Maler des XVII. Jahrhunderts. 10 vols. Esslingen and Paris, 1907–28.
Pigler, Andor. Barockthemen: eine Auswahl von Verzeichnissen zur Ikonographie des 17. und
18. Jahrhunderts. 2 vols. Budapest, 1974, 2:406.
Naumann, Otto. Frans van Mieris (1635–1681) the Elder. 2 vols. Doornspijk, 1981, 1:83, 86,
93–94; 2:120–22, 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, 116 n. 5, 138 n. 2, 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, no. 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):
264 n. 48.
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., and Jennifer Ambrose. Pleasures of Collecting. Exh. cat. Greenwich, Conn.,
Bruce Museum of Arts and Sciences. Greenwich, 2002, 7, 30, fig. 31, 84.
Sutton, Peter C., Lisa Vergara, and Ann Jensen Adams. 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, 142.
Buvelot, Quentin, Otto Naumann, and Eddy de Jongh. Frans van Mieris 1635–1681. Editedby 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 printmakerwith a forgotten oeuvre.” Simiolus 37, no. 2 (2013–14): 132-33.
© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Death of Lucretia
Page 14 of 16

Schwartz, Gary. Emotions: Pain and Pleasure in Dutch Painting of the Golden Age. Edited by
Gary Schwartz. Exh. cat. Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum. Rotterdam, 2014, 118, no. 31.
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 theGolden Age.” In Rembrandt and His Time: Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection. Editedby Lara Yeager-Crasselt, 10; 14 fig. 7. Translated by Li Ying. Exh. cat. Beijing, National
Museum of China. Beijing, 2017. A slightly revised version of this essay appears 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.
Yeager-Crasselt, Lara and Alexa McCarthy. “Death of Lucretia.” In Rembrandt and His Time:
Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection. Edited by Lara Yeager-Crasselt, 96–97; 181, no.
38. Translated by Li Ying. Exh. cat. Beijing, National Museum of China. Beijing, 2017.
Long Museum, West Bund. Rembrandt, Vermeer and Hals in the Dutch Golden Age:
Masterpieces from The 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, 17, 25; 29, 33. Translated by Daria Babich and Daria Kuzina. 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
and Vermeer: Masterpieces of The Leiden Collection. Edited by Polina Lyubimova, 144–45;
239, no. 39. Translated by Daria Babich and Daria Kuzina. 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 and the Dutch Golden Age. Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection and the
Musée du Louvre. Edited by Blaise Ducos and Lara Yeager-Crasselt, 25, 30. London, 2019.
[Exhibition catalogue also published in French and Arabic.]
Blanc, Jan. “Being Modern, Being Dutch: The Seventeenth-Century Invention of the GoldenAge.” In Rembrandt, Vermeer and the Dutch Golden Age. Masterpieces from The Leiden
Collection and the Musée du Louvre. Edited by Blaise Ducos and Lara Yeager-Crasselt, 43.
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. London, 2019, 148,
150, no. 70. [Exhibition catalogue also published in French and Arabic.]© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Death of Lucretia
Page 15 of 16

Versions
Engraved

1. C. H. van Muers, after Frans van Mieris, The Death of Lucretia, etching, dimensions
unknown, impression in Bibliotheca Regia, Vienna, inscribed: Helas: que dois-je Faire en cetétat Funeste / Mon honneur m’est ravi, quell asile me reste / que de Couvrir ma honte par un
moindre malheur / Car en perçant ce Sein je Finis ma douleur.

2. J. Tamboer, after Frans van Mieris, The Death of Lucretia, drawn copy (sale, J. Vollenhoven
et al., Amsterdam, 11 February 1822, Kbk. I, no. 30).

Versions and Copies

1. The Death of Lucretia, oil on panel, 38 x 17 cm; Otto Naumann, Frans van Mieris(1635–1681) the Elder, 2 vols. (Doornspijk, 1981), 2:121, no. 116a, fig. C116a (sale, London,
Sotheby’s, 16 April 1980, no. 57, as by Frans van Mieris).
2. The Death of Lucretia, oil on panel, 38.1 x 40.6 cm; Otto Naumann, Frans van Mieris(1635–1681) the Elder, 2 vols. (Doornspijk, 1981), 2:121, no. 116b; (sale, Christie’s, 28 April
1933, no. 114); possibly identical to FM-103.
3. The Death of Lucretia, support unknown, 30.5 x 25.4 cm; Otto Naumann, Frans van Mieris(1635–1681) the Elder, 2 vols. (Doornspijk, 1981), 2:121, no. 116c; (sale, London, Edwards,
25 November 1802, no. 22).
4. The Death of Lucretia, Otto Naumann, Frans van Mieris (1635–1681) the Elder, 2 vols.
(Doornspijk, 1981), 2:121, no. 116d; Cornelis Hofstede de Groot, A Catalogue Raisonné ofthe Works of the Most Eminent Dutch Painters of the Seventeenth Century Based on theWork of John Smith, 8 vols. (London, 1907–27), translated from Beschreibendes und
kritisches Verzeichnis der Werke der hervorragendsten höllandischen Maler des XVII.
Jahrhunderts, 10 vols. (Esslingen and Paris, 1907–28), 10: no. 28a; Tronchin collection;
Count Vitturi, Venice; Vitturi collection purchased by Thomas Moore Slade in 1775 or 1776;
later sold to Mr. Salen.

Technical Summary
The support is a rectangular-shaped composite panel with an arched upper edge composed of
two vertically grained 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 thelower edge of the composition.[2]© 2020 The Leiden CollectionPowered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

Death of Lucretia
Page 16 of 16

The composite panel has been thinned and marouflaged to an oak panel with bevels on all foursides and machine 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 same plank and may have been added at the same time.[3] On thereverse is a red wax collection seal and three old paper 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 non radio-opaque, which indicates they are different grounds. A dark underpaint appliedalong the lower plank gives the lower portion of the composition a darker appearance than theupper portion, which accentuates the horizontal panel join. The image was constructed insuccessive thin layers with low brushmarking and transparent 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 portion of the backrest of the chair. This form extended through theseatback 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 agood state of preservation.

Technical Summary Endnotes

1. The characterization of the wood is based on visual examination of the X-radiograph andpanel reverse images by Ian Tyers. According to Tyers, the curved edge of the upper plankand the lower edge of the lower 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 by John Twilley, but not in infrared images captured at 780–1000 nanometers.

© 2020 The Leiden Collection