Cleopatra bitten by an Asp
after Guido Reni (Bologna 1575 – Bologna 1642)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
1600 - 1699
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
1080 x 1070 mm
Place of origin
Italy
Order this imageCollection
Nostell Priory, West Yorkshire
NT 960076
Caption
Queen Cleopatra of Egypt sits alone in a dark room applying a poisonous asp to her breast. 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, Mark Antony, committed suicide. The victorious Octavianus Augustus Caesar (Octavian), nephew and adoptive son of Julius Caesar and later known as Emperor Augustus, invaded her country but bereft and distraught, she could not accept defeat.
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, Cleopatra bitten by an Asp, after Guido Reni (Bologna 1575 – Bologna 1642), 17th century. A half-length portrait of Cleopatra wearing a red drape over a white under-dress, with a snake at her bare breast.
Provenance
Purchased by Sir Rowland Winn from Lord Macclesfield's collection [George Parker, 2nd Earl of Macclesfield (d. 1764)]; 7 May 1766, lot no. 15, at a cost of £18.15s.; moved by Chippendale from London to Nostell in November 1767 and placed over the chimneypiece in Lady Winn's Dressing Room; accepted by HM Treasury in lieu of death duties on the estate of Rowland Winn, 4th Baron Oswald (1916 - 1984)
Credit line
Nostell Priory, The St Oswald Collection (National Trust)
Makers and roles
after Guido Reni (Bologna 1575 – Bologna 1642), artist
References
Brockwell 1915 Maurice Walter Brockwell, Catalogue of the Pictures and Other Works of Art in the Collection of Lord St Oswald at Nostell Priory, London 1915, cat. no. 7