The Story
The Suicide of Lucretia is an oil on lime panel painting by Albrecht Dürer, signed and dated 1518, in the collection of the Alte Pinakothek, Munich. It shows the Ancient Rome heroine Lucretia (died c. 510 BC), wife of Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus, in a tall and narrow framing, in the act of killing herself rather than face the shame of being raped by her cousin Sextus Tarquinius. The panel is Dürer's second treatment of Lucretia, following a very similar 1508 drawing. The earlier composition, drawn in ink with wash on paper, is in the Albertina museum, Vienna.
Created in 1507 during the Renaissance period, this work belongs firmly within the portrait tradition. Albrecht Dürer worked at a moment when the rivalry between Catholic Baroque drama and Protestant restraint reshaped what a painting could mean. Every gesture, fabric, and gleam of light was decoded by contemporary viewers like a private language.
Executed in point of brush and gray and black wash, brush and gray and black wash, heightened with white gouache, measuring Sheet: 34.4 x 26.7 cm (13 9/16 x 10 1/2 in.), the surface rewards close looking. Albrecht Dürer builds the composition through layered glazes and a tightly controlled palette, letting cool shadows recede so that the warm, lit passages step forward. The brushwork shifts from the precise to the almost dissolved — a hallmark of mature Baroque practice.
“A silence so complete it becomes its own witness.”
