[2] The story from early Roman history (or legend) of the rape of Lucretia by Sextus Tarquinius (Tarquin), and her subsequent suicide, was a popular subject in Renaissance art.

[9] The subject was one of a group showing women from legend or the Bible who were powerless, or only able to escape their situation through suicide, such as Susanna, Dido of Carthage and Verginia.

[10] These formed a counterpoint to, or sub-group of, the set of subjects known as the Power of Women, showing female violence against, or domination of, men.

[11] Either Titian or, as is now thought more likely, his brother Francesco Vecellio (c. 1490–1559/60), had already painted the suicide, as "an elegant dance movement in a landscape", some 50 years earlier (now Royal Collection).

[12] Titian, or perhaps Palma Vecchio, had also painted a typical portrait of Lucretia holding a knife, but with the untypical addition of a male figure in deep shadow, either Tarquin or her husband, standing just behind her.

[13] Titian's new composition can be shown to have been influenced by Northern prints, and was itself immediately popularized by an engraving by Cornelius Cort, dated 1571, which is "evidently from some authorized modeletto".

[17] There is an unfinished version, or study, with the raised hand but many other differences, now in the Akademie der bildenden Künste in Vienna (illustrated here).

[19] Like many of the paintings of his last years, it was a commission for Philip II of Spain, and was ready for collection by the Spanish ambassador to Venice by August 1571.