타르퀴니우스와 루크레티아

Rubens painted this around 1610, soon after eight years in Italy, and it shows exactly what he brought home: the muscular bodies of Michelangelo and the warm colour of the Venetians, scaled up huge. The subject is a grim episode from early Roman legend. Sextus Tarquinius, son of Rome's last king, forces himself on Lucretia, a nobleman's wife known for her virtue, who in the story tells her family and then takes her own life. The outrage was said to have driven the Romans to expel their kings and found the Republic. Rubens seizes the moment of the assault itself, all violent motion and torn cloth. The painting later became a prize of kings, a favourite of Frederick the Great, who kept it at his palace of Sanssouci.