The Suicide of Cleopatra (after Guido Reni)
Pietro Antonio (?) Sasso (1834-1905)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
1854 - 1905
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
1220 x 940 mm
Order this imageCollection
The Argory, County Armagh
NT 564859
Caption
Queen Cleopatra of Egypt stands alone in a dark room applying a poisonous asp to her breast, the bowl of figs from whence it came in front of her. The historical story of her death is related in the biography of Mark Antony in the Greek Plutarch’s Lives (44:86). After the Battle of Actium (31 BC) her ally and lover committed suicide. The victorious Octavianus Augustus Caesar (Octavian), nephew and adoptive son of Julius Caesar and later known Emperor Augustus, invaded her country but bereft and distraught, she could not accept defeat.
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, The Suicide of Cleopatra, after Guido Reni (Bologna 1575 – Bologna 1642), by Pietro Antonio (?) Sasso (1834-1905).
Provenance
Given by Walter Albert Nevill MacGeough Bond (1907 - 1986) in 1979
Credit line
The Argory, The MacGeough Bond Collection (National Trust)
Makers and roles
Pietro Antonio (?) Sasso (1834-1905), artist after Guido Reni (Bologna 1575 – Bologna 1642), artist