Lucretia

Veronese painted the Roman noblewoman Lucretia around 1580, at the height of his career in Venice. The story was well known in a city that prized its own republic: after being raped by the king's son, Lucretia took her own life, and the outrage that followed drove out Rome's monarchy and founded the Republic. Where other painters made her a pretext for a nude, Veronese keeps her clothed in dark funeral silk, jeweled, her hair still dressed with pearls. He fixes the instant before the end, the dagger already turned against her breast, her face heavy with grief rather than fear. The rich, sombre drapery around her belongs to a woman of rank taking a very public death into her own hands.