Inscribed, upper right, "As when wolfe findeth a lamb alone To whom shall she complaine or make moan." This painting of Lucretia is based on Part V of Geoffrey Chaucer's 'Legend of Good Women'. Lucretia was a married Roman woman, who was raped by a prince of Rome, Tarquinius, and in her shame, killed herself. Bell makes no reference to any such painting in his 'Record and Review' of 1892, so it is difficult to tell for what purpose this work was executed. There is a design for stained glass/ tile that Burne-Jones executed for Morris & Co. in 1864 of 'Ariadne and Lucretia' (BMAG 1904P523), and Morris designed an embroidered panel of Lucretia, Hippolyte and Helen around the same time (embroidered by Elizabeth Burden and Jane Morris, finished 1888; Castle Howard Collection, Yorkshire). Burne-Jones's portrait of Maria Zambaco (1870, Clemens-sels-Museum, Neuss, Germany) owes a debt to this painting, in its use of a drawn back curtain on the left and irises (for 'remembrance') on the bottom of the paintings. It is important to note that this image began as a design for stained glass, indicated by the blacked-out flowers painted over on the bottom of the picture, identical in composition to the flora on the groundline of both the earlier embroidery designs and other cartoons of this period. It was then worked-up as an independent watercolour painting, and given as a wedding gift to Charles Augustus Howell in August 1867, referenced in several of Burne-Jones's letters to George Howard, 9th Earl of Carlisle, now in the Castle Howard Archives.
The dimensions of the present watercolour correspond to those of the embroideries for The Legend of Good Women made for Ruskin. This would suggest that this is the over-painted cartoon for embroidery. The introduction of a blue iris into the painting, which in Henry Phillips "Floral Emblems", symbolises message or messenger, would imply that there was something of significance within the painting, known to Howell and Burne-Jones particularly when it was given as a wedding present. At this time, Howell was Ruskin's secretary and it may be that as Lucretia had been designed initially as a embroidery for Ruskin, that Burne-Jones thought it a suitable gift, but this offers no explanation as to the inclusion of the flower.