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Lucrezia Borgia, Duchess of Ferrara
(1519-1530)
- Medium
- oil on wood panel
- Measurements
- 74.5 × 57.2 cm
- Place/s of Execution
- Italy
- Accession Number
- 1587-5
- Department
- International Painting
- Credit Line
- National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Felton Bequest, 1966
This digital record has been made available on NGV Collection Online through the generous support of Digitisation Champion Ms Carol Grigor through Metal Manufactures Limited - Gallery location
- Not on display
- About this work
-
The recent identification of the subject of this painting as Lucrezia Borgia (1480–1519) answered a long-running mystery. Borgia married Alfonso d’Este, heir to the duchy of Ferrara, in 1502. In doing so, she farewelled the tumultuous affairs of the Borgia papacy, and settled into the highly cultured environment of Renaissance Ferrara. This portrait is flush with references to classical Antiquity: it contains symbolic references to Venus and the ancient Roman heroine Lucretia, and is thematically united by its Latin inscription, ‘brighter [than beauty] is the virtue reigning in this beautiful body’, a sophisticated adaptation of a verse from Virgil’s Aeneid.
- Subjects (general)
- Allegory and Symbols Portraits
- Subjects (specific)
- duchesses (noblewomen) half figures nobles (aristocrats) three-quarter views women (female humans)
- Movements
- Renaissance