Show me:
and
Clear all filters

  • 33 items
  • 25 items Explore
  • 89 items
  • 3,541 items Explore
  • 97 items Explore
  • 14 items
  • 4 items
  • 220 items
  • 13,816 items Explore
  • 211 items Explore
  • 1,225 items Explore
  • 8,754 items Explore
  • 5,063 items Explore
  • 62 items Explore
  • 165 items Explore
  • 13,060 items Explore
  • 13,620 items Explore
  • 4,802 items Explore
  • 1 items
  • 5 items
  • 149 items Explore
  • 1,998 items Explore
  • 4,755 items Explore
  • 438 items Explore
  • 266 items
  • 104 items Explore
  • 19,975 items Explore
  • 36 items Explore
  • 1,912 items Explore
  • 1,083 items Explore
  • 5 items
  • 2,166 items Explore
  • 455 items Explore
  • 920 items Explore
  • 1 items Explore
  • 5 items
  • 7 items
  • 20,373 items Explore
  • 800 items Explore
  • 19 items
  • 73 items Explore
  • 33 items
  • 792 items
  • 20 items
  • 4 items
  • 26 items
  • 61 items
  • 28 items
  • 319 items Explore
  • 6 items
  • 44 items Explore
  • 1 items
  • 2 items
  • 2 items
  • 9 items
  • 122 items Explore
  • 119 items
  • 1 items
  • 926 items Explore
  • 724 items
  • 95 items
  • 27 items
  • 37,988 items Explore
  • 1 items
  • 3,882 items Explore
  • 1,533 items Explore
  • 403 items
  • 125 items Explore
  • 10,736 items Explore
  • 9,682 items Explore
  • 4 items
  • 1 items
  • 38 items
  • 3 items
  • 4 items
  • 6,780 items Explore
  • 2 items
  • 7,364 items Explore
  • 4,882 items Explore
  • 2,005 items Explore
  • 1,195 items Explore
  • 23,793 items Explore
  • 3,660 items Explore
  • 17 items
  • 5 items
  • 334 items
  • 106 items
  • 1 items
  • 3,329 items Explore
  • 23 items Explore
  • 374 items Explore
  • 796 items Explore
  • 1,087 items Explore
  • 514 items Explore
  • 1,519 items Explore
  • 89 items
  • 125 items Explore
  • 6,954 items Explore
  • 76 items
  • 108 items
  • 4 items
  • 2 items
  • 63 items
  • 2 items
  • 2,932 items Explore
  • 1,529 items Explore
  • 203 items
  • 90 items
  • 22,292 items Explore
  • 1,340 items Explore
  • 138 items
  • 848 items Explore
  • 32 items
  • 1 items
  • 122 items Explore
  • 40 items
  • 20 items
  • 252 items
  • 313 items
  • 687 items Explore
  • 343 items Explore
  • 2,429 items
  • 2,535 items
  • 3 items
  • 1 items
  • 4,394 items Explore
  • 40,355 items Explore
  • 1 items
  • 3,293 items Explore
  • 275 items Explore
  • 8,876 items Explore
  • 31 items
  • 25 items
  • 304 items Explore
  • 776 items Explore
  • 3 items
  • 65 items
  • 161 items
  • 50 items
  • 52 items
  • 23,867 items Explore
  • 916 items
  • 66 items
  • 22,648 items Explore
  • 2 items
  • 2,336 items Explore
  • 1 items
  • 1,028 items Explore
  • 4 items
  • 759 items
  • 499 items
  • 4 items
  • 3,309 items Explore
  • 179 items
  • 59 items
  • 455 items Explore
  • 3 items
  • 21 items
  • 90 items Explore
  • 76 items
  • 281 items Explore
  • 1 items
  • 6 items
  • 128 items
  • 295 items
  • 447 items
  • 287 items
  • 1 items
  • 906 items Explore
  • 272 items Explore
  • 481 items
  • 11,295 items Explore
  • 755 items Explore
  • 6,020 items Explore
  • 8,295 items Explore
  • 27 items
  • 1 items
  • 5,971 items Explore
  • 4 items
  • 3,725 items Explore
  • 9,182 items Explore
  • 7,886 items Explore
  • 182 items
  • 19 items
  • 144 items
  • 7 items
  • 853 items Explore
  • 19 items
  • 8 items
  • 1,096 items Explore
  • 270 items
  • 1 items
  • 2,122 items
  • 1 items
  • 3,543 items Explore
  • 695 items Explore
  • 18 items
  • 134 items
  • 6,738 items Explore
  • 95 items
  • 18,934 items Explore
  • 3,137 items Explore
  • 3 items
  • 7 items
  • 10,979 items Explore
  • 37 items
  • 2 items
  • 21,449 items Explore
  • 35 items
  • 13,321 items Explore
  • 3,460 items Explore
  • 5,644 items Explore
  • 33 items
  • 51,837 items Explore
  • 41 items
  • 646 items Explore
  • 417 items
  • 26,947 items Explore
  • 216 items
  • 3 items
  • 1 items
  • 35 items
  • 27 items
  • 445 items Explore
  • 636 items
  • 217 items Explore
  • 13 items
  • 13,766 items Explore
  • 1,360 items Explore
  • 3 items
  • 10,260 items
  • 9 items
  • 10 items
  • 14 items
  • 25 items
  • 1 items
  • 4,537 items Explore
  • 913 items Explore
  • 1 items
  • 1 items
  • 318 items
  • 509 items Explore
  • 42 items
  • 2,290 items Explore
  • 1,664 items Explore
  • 15 items
  • 1,877 items Explore
  • 150 items
  • 80 items
  • 766 items Explore
  • 3,102 items Explore
  • 44 items
  • 17 items
  • 12 items
  • 10,670 items Explore
  • 23,753 items Explore
  • 1 items
  • 3 items
  • 1 items
  • 41 items
  • 1,374 items
  • 177 items Explore
  • 8 items
  • 92 items
  • 1 items
  • 13,586 items Explore
  • 3,583 items Explore
  • 2,904 items Explore
  • 4,534 items Explore
  • 22 items
  • 30 items
  • 6,911 items Explore
  • 4,842 items Explore
  • 2,300 items Explore
  • 2,818 items Explore
  • 2 items
  • 1,899 items Explore
  • 191 items
  • 223 items Explore
  • 421 items Explore
  • 6,115 items Explore
  • 8,729 items Explore
  • 1,832 items Explore
  • 3 items
  • 1 items
  • 5,942 items Explore
  • 3,354 items Explore
  • 11,134 items Explore
  • 1 items
  • 84 items
  • 11 items
  • 2,516 items Explore
  • 7 items
  • 24 items
  • 51 items
  • 6 items
  • 1 items
  • 4,291 items Explore
  • 611 items Explore
  • 75 items
  • 17 items
  • 155 items Explore
  • 1 items
  • 95 items Explore
  • 458 items
  • 996 items Explore
  • 3,614 items Explore
  • 4 items
  • 5 items
  • 2 items
  • 9,671 items Explore
  • 48 items Explore
  • 3 items
  • 7 items
  • 42 items
  • 3 items
  • 13,807 items Explore
  • 4 items
  • 1,168 items Explore
  • 92 items
  • 10,565 items Explore
  • 1,920 items
  • 18 items
  • 6,727 items Explore
  • 21 items
  • 12,949 items Explore
  • 1,418 items Explore
  • 8 items
  • 6,176 items Explore
  • 14,885 items Explore
  • 4 items
  • 1,667 items Explore
  • 181 items Explore
  • 4 items
  • 16 items
  • 5,684 items Explore
  • 12,284 items Explore
  • 48 items
  • 25 items
  • 2 items
  • 3 items
  • 7,191 items Explore
  • 357 items Explore
  • 13 items
  • 6 items
  • 103 items Explore
  • 7 items
  • 5 items
  • 485 items
  • 688 items Explore
  • 8,391 items Explore
  • 58 items
  • 1 items
  • 7,347 items Explore
  • 5 items
  • 26 items
  • 4,741 items Explore
  • 428 items
  • 339 items Explore
  • 12,715 items Explore
  • 55 items
  • 20 items
  • 7 items
  • 4 items
  • 325 items Explore
  • 427 items
  • 458 items
  • 1 items
  • 3,694 items Explore
  • 27 items
  • 1,238 items Explore
  • 2,503 items Explore
  • 1,123 items Explore
  • 36 items
  • 1,139 items Explore
  • 97 items Explore
  • 24 items
  • 229 items Explore
  • 80,355 items Explore
  • 1 items
  • 3,139 items Explore
  • 2,871 items Explore
  • 24 items
  • 5,352 items Explore
  • 1,831 items Explore
  • 4 items
  • 17,516 items Explore
  • 4,931 items Explore
  • 1 items
  • 7 items
  • 622 items Explore
  • 85 items
  • 31 items
  • 1 items
  • 76 items
  • 29 items
  • 86 items
  • 3 items
  • 1,176 items Explore
  • 109 items
  • 805 items
  • 13,201 items Explore
  • 27 items
  • 13 items
  • 1,710 items Explore
  • 217 items
  • 17,042 items Explore
  • 85 items
  • 17 items
  • 1 items
  • 8 items
  • 324 items
  • 2 items
  • 631 items Explore
  • 1,592 items Explore
  • 8 items
  • 1,130 items Explore
  • 389 items
  • 1 items
  • 2 items
  • 354 items

Select a time period

Or choose a specific year

Clear all filters

Cleopatra and the Pearl

Aubusson

Category

Tapestries

Date

circa 1655 - circa 1775

Materials

Tapestry, wool and silk, 4 warps per cm

Measurements

2.85 m (H); 4.25 m (W)

Place of origin

Aubusson

Order this image

Collection

Anglesey Abbey, Cambridgeshire

NT 516795

Summary

Tapestry, wool and silk, 4 warps per cm, Cleopatra and the Pearl, Aubusson, after a design attributed to Isaac Moillon, c. 1660-1680. In the right foreground a banquet takes place at an outdoor table under a canopy. Cleopatra, on the left of the table, richly dressed in a blue robe, breastplate and jewelled coronet, holds a pearl over a golden goblet on the table. Anthony sits opposite her at the other end of the table, wearing armour and a laurel wreath, and holding the golden goblet. A woman sits at the table between Antony and Cleopatra and two man stand behind Cleopatra. A boy approaches from the right carrying a golden jar, and on the left in the background three more servants approach with platters laden with food. The tapestry has fairly narrow borders with a design of flowers and leaves tied with ribbons on a brown ground.

Full description

'Cleopatra and the Pearl' is one of the most famous events in the life of Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt (69 BC – 30 AD) illustrating her extraordinary wealth and extravagance. The story is related in Pliny the Elder's Natural History, book IX, XXXV, lines 119-22. Cleopatra's lover the Roman General Antony daily presented her with precious gifts, but she haughtily disdained them. Antony asked her how he could add to the sumptuousness of their table, and Cleopatra replied that in a single meal she would eat ten million sesterces. Antony did not believe that this could be done, and so they made a bet. The next day Cleopatra served Antony a dinner that was sumptuous but not out of the ordinary, and he mockingly asked how much it had cost, sure that he would win his bet. Cleopatra assured him that this was just an aside, and that she alone would eat the ten million seterces. She ordered the next course to be brought, and following her instructions the attendants placed before her a vase filled with a strong vinegar whose acidity could dissolve pearls. Cleopatra was wearing extraordinary earrings made from great pearls, larger than any known to exist, which she had inherited from Eastern rulers. When Antony asked what she was going to do she detached one of her earrings, plunged it into the liquid and, when it had dissolved, swallowed it. She was about to do the same to the other earring when Plancus, the arbiter of the bet, pronounced Antony beaten. The tapestry shows Cleopatra about to drop the pearl into a goblet of vinegar, watched by the astonished Antony; one of the men standing behind her probably represents Plancus. The tapestry comes from a series of designs of 'Illustrious Women of Antiquity' woven at the French centre of Aubusson in the mid seventeenth century. The series comprised up to nine subjects, the others representing 'Dido', 'Lucretia', 'Valerie', 'Roxanne', 'Portia' and 'Pauline'. Inventories and other records show that this series was sometimes combined with scenes from another, also woven at Aubusson, of 'Illustrious Women of the Old Testament'. Series of illustrious women were very popular in the mid seventeenth century especially in France, with sets of prints published on the subject, a number of painted decorative schemes, as well as tapestry sets. The subject was popular elsewhere in Europe as well, and Anglesey Abbey is home to a tapestry of 'Rebecca' from a series of 'Old Testament Heroines' made in Bruges at around the same time as the Aubusson series (no. 516751). Recently the design of the Aubusson 'Illustrious Women of Antiquity' has been attributed to Isaac Moillon (1614-1673), a Parisian painter who produced a large number of tapestry cartoons for the city. The series can be linked stylistically to Moillon's other tapestry cartoons and the figures of Portia, Dido and Pauline all resemble figures that appear in Moillon's paintings (de Reyniès and Laveissière 2005, p. 280). Tapestries of 'Illustrious women' made in Aubusson are recorded from 1655 onwards, although we cannot be certain that these records relate to Moillon's series. Moillon himself is first recorded in Aubusson in 1650, so it is plausible that he designed the series in the early 1650s. The 'Illustrious Women' remained popular until the mid 1670s (de Reyniès and Laveissière 2005, pp. 281-2). Weavings of 'Cleopatra' survive in the Château d'Ansouis, Provence, and the Château de Torigni-sur Vire, Normandy; others have surfaced on the French art market in the twentieth century (de Reyniès and Laveissière 2005, p. 294). (Helen Wyld, 2011)

Provenance

Bequeathed to the National Trust by Huttleston Rogers Broughton, 1st Lord Fairhaven (1896-1966) with the house and the rest of the contents.

Credit line

Anglesey Abbey, The Fairhaven Collection (The National Trust)

Makers and roles

Aubusson, workshop attributed to Isaac Moillon (Paris 1614 - Paris 1673), designer

References

de Reyniès and Laveissière, 2005: Nicole de Reyniès and Sylvain Laveissière, Isaac Moillon (1614-1673), Un Peintre du Roi à Aubusson, Aubusson 2005

View more details