Lucretia

In the last two or three years of his life, between about 1640 and 1642, Guido Reni painted a run of half-length heroines, and this Lucretia is one of them. Her story is told by the Roman historian Livy. Raped by Sextus Tarquinius, son of the last king of Rome, she called her father and her husband to her, made them swear to avenge her, and stabbed herself. The revolt that followed drove out the kings, and the Romans dated the start of their republic from it.

Reni shows her just before the blow, her eyes turned upward and the dagger already at her breast. Large parts of the canvas never went beyond the first stage. The colour is close to monochrome, and the drapery is laid in with quick, broad strokes that let you follow the speed of his hand. Whether he meant to stop here or simply ran out of time is not known. He used a canvas of exactly the same size for a Cleopatra, another woman of antiquity choosing her own death, and both have belonged to this collection since 1748.