The Death of Virginia

From the Getty Museum record

*The Death of Virginia* is a highly resolved compositional sketch for a monumental history painting that Lethière, after lengthy preparations, completed in 1828 and exhibited in the 1831 Paris Salon. The subject derives from Livy (*The History of Rome*, book III, 44-58). Daughter of the Roman centurion Lucius Virginius and a freed slave, Virginia was a reputed beauty. In 449 BC, one of the influential magistrates of the ruling decemvirate, Appius Claudius Sabinus, fatefully set his sights on her. When she refused him, he treacherously claimed her as a slave for his protégé, Marcus Claudius. Unable to oppose his scheme, Virginia’s father felt compelled to stab her to death rather than see her lose her freedom: a horrifying yet righteous killing in the patriarchal context of ancient Rome. Galvanized by this terrible event, the people rose up and brought about the downfall of the tyrannical decemvirate. Set against a theatrical backdrop of monumental Roman architecture under a stormy sky, Lethiere’s teeming composition presents a pyramidal frieze of agitated bodies with a loose but precise touch. Virginia in her death swoon anchors the composition at lower right. Her furiously distraught father, pointing back at her, surges forward and brandishes his bloodied dagger at the corrupt decemvir, who gestures defensively at the apex of the composition. All around, the populace swells up in angry protest.