Lucrezia Borgia

Rossetti painted this small watercolour in 1860 and 1861, when he had fallen deep into the lurid history of the Borgias. He shows Lucrezia Borgia washing her hands, having just poisoned her husband, Duke Alfonso of Bisceglie. Look at the mirror behind her. Her father, Pope Alexander the Sixth, is walking the dying Duke up and down the room, keeping him moving so the poison spreads through him. It is a Renaissance rumour more than settled fact, but that is what drew Rossetti, the idea of beauty and calm cruelty in one figure. He was not done with her either. Years later he went back and reworked Lucrezia's face.