Lot Essay
Born to a Roman noble family in the late 16th century, Beatrice Cenci fatefully conspired with her mother to bludgeon her malicious father. Her subsequent execution would ultimately become a popular subject of poems, dramas and novels, including The Cenci by Percy Bysshe Shelley. Another example of this portrait is illustrated in A. Gabino et al., Roman Mosaic: l'Arte del Micromosaico fra '700 e '800, Rome, 2001, p. 168.