The Vestal Virgin Tuccia

Artist: Giovanni Battista Moroni (Italian, 1520/4 - 1579)

Original Dimensions: 60" x 34 1/4"

Location: National Gallery of Art, London

About Artwork: (About 1555) "This picture is unusual among Moroni’s secular paintings: the others that survive are all portraits. It is the only single-figure allegorical painting known by him and is likely to date from about 1560. The woman may be intended as a personification of Chastity but she also represents the Roman priestess of Vesta, Tuccia. According to legend, when the Vestal Virgin Tuccia was accused of breaking her vows she proved her chastity by carrying water from the River Tiber in a sieve. Moroni shows the sieve as a colander, and the water-line can be seen just above the holes. The inscription on the stone tablet comes from the Roman author Valerius Maximus and means ‘Chastity emerges from the dark clouds of infamy’. Tuccia was frequently included in series of paintings of virtuous women made between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries. This picture may have been one of a series, perhaps made for a civic or judicial building, or possibly a convent." - (National Gallery of Art, London)