Giovanni Giacomo Sementi - Lucrezia romana - oil on canvas 115 x 97 cm "Blatant in this canvas is the borrowing from models by Guido Reni, a leading protagonist of Emilian and Italian painting in the first half of the 17th century; not a slavish inspiration, however, but the kind of personal reworking of ideas and sentimental cues that only a daily and assiduous working relationship with the great artist could allow: so intense and expressive as to almost suggest a direct intervention by the master himself. The author of the work in question is therefore to be sought among the first members of the Bolognese master's work team, as well as among those of the highest artistic ability; [...] it is with Giovanni Giacomo Sementi that the Lucrezia in question, with its pungent and almost painful sentimental fullness, shows close and widespread artistic and cultural affinities'. The subject of the painting is taken from the famous and tragic episode in the ancient history of Rome, narrated by Titus Livius in the first book of his Ab Urbe condita, in which Lucretia is depicted in the act of stabbing herself with a sharp dagger, which she hid under her robe. The woman, remembered as one of the most significant figures of ancient Rome, committed suicide following the violence she suffered from Sextus - the son of the last king of Rome, who was also for this reason deposed and driven from the city, marking the end of the monarchy and the birth of the Republic. "The Lucretia in question is comparable with a work with the same subject, autographed by Sementi, kept in the Besancon Museum; both works can be placed at a time when our artist was closest to Reni's style. This would seem to be testified by the evident homage to the fortunate invention of the master, full-length, datable around 1625, now in the Postdam Museum. "Presented in a coeval frame.The work has the expertise of Professor Massimo Pirondini.