Tarquin and Lucretia

Trained in the Viennese academy, Sigrist was active at Augsburg before retuning to the Austrian capital in service to the imperial family. While few of his conventional drawings have been identified, such monochrome oil sketches were frequent in his work. Here, the figures’ more robust construction and the composition’s more regulated movement––signs of an emerging classicism––correspond to Sigrist’s later Viennese activity. Rendered on a scrap of canvas, it was probably preparatory for a large easel picture.