Cleopatra Lawrence Alma-Tadema 1877

Cleopatra
Lawrence Alma-Tadema 1877
From the collection of
Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki
Lawrence Alma-Tadema made two large-scale versions of The Meeting of Antony and Cleopatra, 41 BC, taking his inspiration from Shakespeare’s play, rather than historic texts. Mark Antony (Marcus Antonius, 83 BC–30 BC), a Roman politician and general, loses his head to the Egyptian queen Cleopatra (69 BC– 30 BC) when he first observes her beauty.

Recorded as a femme fatale (in truth she was plain but extremely witty, charming, and with ‘sweetness in the tones of her voice’ (Plutarch)), Roman historians later exonerated their soldiers’ ineffectiveness in her presence by accusing her of a seductive extravagance impossible to resist.

Apart from her purported death from an asp bite, one of the most popular scenes of Cleopatra in art shows the high dramatic moment of their narrative when she is seated at a banquet table with Mark Antony. To win a wager with him that she can produce the most expensive meal on earth, she dissolves one of her pearl earrings in a glass of wine before drinking it. This tiny painting is like a photographic close up of the earring in question.

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Details
Title: Cleopatra
Creator: Lawrence Alma-Tadema
Date Created: 1877
Subject: Egypt
Physical Dimensions: w460 x h445 mm (Without frame)
Artist biography: Lawrence Alma-Tadema was born in 1836. He trained at the Royal Academy of Antwerp, Belgium and settled in England in 1870 where he spent the rest of his life. Inspired by the classical world his paintings capture the opulence and excess of the Roman Empire, with languid figures set in marbled interiors. Alma-Tadema died in 1912.
Type: Painting
Rights: Mackelvie Trust Collection, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, purchased 1916, http://www.aucklandartgallery.com/terms-of-use
External Link: Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki http://www.aucklandartgallery.com/the-collection/browse-artwork/11458/cleopatra
Medium: oil on panel

Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki
Auckland, New Zealand

Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki opened its doors on 17 February 1888 and is the oldest purpose-built art gallery in New Zealand. The founding gifts of Sir George Grey and James Tannock Mackelvie were instrumental in the Gallery’s establishment and these public-spirited gestures heralded a culture of patronage by generous individuals. From these beginnings focussing on European and British art, we now have more than 16,000 works in the collection, and our redeveloped building provides purpose-built spaces for regularly changing exhibitions.

The Gallery's collection includes major holdings of New Zealand historic, modern and contemporary art. These artworks plot a visual history of New Zealand, beginning with the first contact between Māori and European explorers in the 1600s. Outstanding works by Māori and Pacific Island artists are a powerful feature of our holdings, and the international painting, sculpture and print collections connect us with the world beyond the Pacific. The diversity of mediums and artistic practices in the collection also continues to grow. Our oldest work of art is a sandstone figure from the walls of a Hindu temple in North India. It dates from the 10th–12th century. And our newest is likely to be a commissioned artwork we are creating with an artist right now. Taken together, our holdings are widely considered to comprise New Zealand’s pre-eminent public art collection.

Lawrence Alma-Tadema
Jan 8, 1836 - Jun 25, 1912

Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, OM, RA was a Frisian painter of special British denizenship.
Born in Dronrijp, the Netherlands, and trained at the Royal Academy of Antwerp, Belgium, he settled in England in 1870 and spent the rest of his life there. A classical-subject painter, he became famous for his depictions of the luxury and decadence of the Roman Empire, with languorous figures set in fabulous marbled interiors or against a backdrop of dazzling blue Mediterranean Sea and sky.
Though admired during his lifetime for his draftsmanship and depictions of Classical antiquity, his work fell into disrepute after his death, and only since the 1960s has it been re-evaluated for its importance within nineteenth-century English art.
http://hisour.com/art-medium/paintings/cleopatra-lawrence-alma-tadema-1877/