A dramatic drive over the hills today to visit the superlative Bowes Museum in Barnard Castle. A highlight was an exhibition around a portrait of the Death of Lucretia.

Lucretia was an ancient Roman woman whose fate played a vital role in the transition from the Roman Kingdom to the Roman Republic. Her suicide by stabbing after having been raped by an Etruscan king's son was the immediate cause of the anti-monarchist rebellion that overthrew the monarchy.


Extra. Elsewhere in the galleries was a group of newly designed dresses based on Lucretia’s suicide.