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Lucretia instructing her daughters in needlework from Giovanni Ostaus's, La vera perfettione del disegno di varie sorte di recami (Venice, 1557)

1557
Not on view
An argument among the generals of the Roman tyrant Tarquin about whose wife was the most chaste resulted in a surprise visit to Rome, where the men discovered that their women were up to no good. Only the beautiful Lucretia, wife of Collatinus, was found virtuously engaged in needlework. In the background of this woodcut, we see Collatinus with the king's son, who conceived a passion for Lucretia that led to her rape and subsequent suicide. When her kinsmen, seeking vengeance, drove Tarquin from Rome, the Roman republic was founded. Giuseppe Salviati painted a fresco of the same subject on the façade of the Palazzo Loredan in Venice.



This woodcut is cut from the second page of what appears to be the first edition of the lacebook by Giovanni Ostaus, La vera perfettione del disegno di varie sorte di recami, Venice, 1557.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Lucretia instructing her daughters in needlework from Giovanni Ostaus's, La vera perfettione del disegno di varie sorte di recami (Venice, 1557)
  • Artist: Giuseppe Salviati (Giuseppe Porta, called Il Salviati) (Italian, Castelnuovo di Garfagnana ca. 1520–ca. 1575 Venice)
  • Published in: Venice
  • Date: 1557
  • Medium: Woodcut
  • Dimensions: Sheet: 3 11/16 × 5 9/16 in. (9.3 × 14.2 cm)
  • Classification: Prints
  • Credit Line: A. Hyatt Mayor Purchase Fund, Marjorie Phelps Starr Bequest, 2006
  • Object Number: 2006.326
  • Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints

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