Historical Pin-Up

Cleopatra as a kind of pin-up by the American artist Victor Tchetchet (1891-1974). Tchetchet was a famous pin-up calendar and cover artist working for magazines like American Weekly, Liberty, Master Detective, Photoplay.

A Wicked Queen

Cleopatra Testing Poisons on Condemned Prisoners (1887) by the French painter Alexandre Cabanel (1823-1889). The beautiful but cruel Cleopatra watches cold and impassively the effect of poison on some poor prisoners. The painter also makes great efforts with the exotic dress and the Egyptian architecture in the background, which he probably knew by the then very popular prints of the paintings by David Roberts.

Art Deco Cleopatra

Cleopatra by the American artist Maxfield Parrish (1870-1966). Parrish doesn't intend to simulate a far past, Cleopatra looks like a woman of the golden twenties. She's only a symbol for the timeless femme fatale.

Cleopatra's Banquet

Cleopatra's Banquet (c.1675) by the Dutch Golden Age painter Gerard de Lairesse (1640-1711). Cleopatra is here dissolving her earring in vinegar and will drink it to prove to the Roman Mark Antony that she can spent ten million sestertia for one supper.

Despite the architecture is pure fantasy it shows that Lairesse already tried to provide his painting with a historical setting.