Tarquin and Lucretia

The fateful struggle between the lust-crazed Roman prince Tarquin and Lucretia, the chaste wife of another Italian ruler, inspired two engravings by Cornelis Cort after Titian’s well-known painting of this subject (Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, England). This engraving is oriented in the same direction as the painting, though with a more complete composition than the subsequently cropped original work. This impression is a fine, dark and early first state, before the artist’s signature and a poem were added at the bottom. Threatening murder and dishonor, Tarquin raped Lucretia, but her subsequent suicide fueled a rebellion against the monarchy, forever changing Roman history.