Pictures Dated 28th May 2010

'Portrait of the Italian singer Angelika Catalani', late 18th or early 19th century. Artist: Elisabeth Louise Vigee-LeBrun

'Portrait of the Italian singer Angelika Catalani', late 18th or early 19th century. Angelica Catalani (1780-1849) was a soprano opera singer. After making her debut in Venice in 1795, she appeared at many of Europe's leading opera houses before retiring in 1828 and founding a free singing school in Florence. Found in the collection of the State Museum Arkhangelskoye Estate, Moscow.

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'Tarquinius and Lucretia', 16th or early 17th century. Artist: Jacopo Palma

'Tarquinius and Lucretia', 16th or early 17th century. Sextus Tarquinius raping Lucretia, a married noblewoman. According to both Ovid and Livy, this act, and Lucretia's subsequent suicide, led to a popular uprising that overthrew the rule of Sextus Tarquinius' father, Lucius Tarquinius Suberbus, the seventh and last king of Rome, and resulted in the establishment of the Roman Republic. The story is also told in Shakespeare's narrative poem The Rape of Lucrece, published in 1594. Found in the collection of the State Hermitage, St Petersburg.

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'The Sacrifice of Polyxena', 1730s. Artist: Giovanni Battista Pittoni the Younger

'The Sacrifice of Polyxena', 1730s. According th Greek Mythology, Polyxena was the youngest daughter of King Priam of Troy and his queen, Hecuba. She was killed as a sacrifice after the death of Achilles, who had cofided in her the secret of his sole vulnerability, his heel. Polyxena passed the information on to her brothers, Paris and Deiphobus, who were able to kill Achilles by shooting him in the heel with a poisoned arrow. Found in the collection of the State Hermitage, St Petersburg.

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