Cleopatra VII of Egypt

Cleopatra VII Philopator (Κλεοπάτρα θεά φιλοπάτωρ, December, 70 BC or January, 69 BC–August 12?, 30 BC) was queen of ancient Egypt. She was the last member of the Macedonian Ptolemaic dynasty and hence the last Greek ruler of Egypt. Her father was Ptolemy XII Auletes. The name "Cleopatra" is Greek for "father's glory"; her full name, "Cleopatra Thea Philopator" means "the Goddess Cleopatra, Beloved of Her Father."

Cleopatra in art, film, TV, and literature

Cleopatra's story has fascinated scores of writers and artists through the centuries. No doubt, much of her appeal lay in her legend as a great seductress who was able to ally herself with two of the most powerful men (Caesar and Antony) of her time.

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Among the more famous works on her:

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• Cléopâtre by Jules-Émile-Frédéric Massenet
• Incipit Legenda Cleopatrie Martiris, Egipti Regine from Geoffrey Chaucer's The Legend of Good Women
• Antony and Cleopatra by William Shakespeare
• All for Love by John Dryden
• Cléopatre by Victorien Sardou
• Cleopatra (1889) by H. Rider Haggard
• Caesar and Cleopatra by George Bernard Shaw
• The Memoirs of Cleopatra by Margaret George

Films about Cleopatra

The earliest Cleopatra-related motion picture was Antony and Cleopatra (1908) with Florence Lawrence as Cleopatra. The earliest film on Cleopatra as the main subject was Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, starring Helen Gardner (1912).

Related Topics:
Motion picture - 1908 - Florence Lawrence - Helen Gardner - 1912

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Among the film/TV works inspired by the Queen of the Nile:

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• (1917): Cleopatra: Theda Bara (Cleopatra), Fritz Leiber (Caesar), Thurston Hall (Antony). Directed by J. Gordon Edwards. Based on Émile Moreau's play Cléopatre, Sardou's play Cléopatre, and Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra.
• (1934): Cleopatra: Claudette Colbert (Cleopatra), Warren William (Caesar), Henry Wilcoxon (Antony). Oscar-winning Cecil B. DeMille epic.
• (1946): Caesar and Cleopatra: Vivien Leigh (Cleopatra), Claude Rains (Caesar), Stewart Granger, Flora Robson — Oscar-nominated version of George Bernard Shaw's play. Leigh also played Cleopatra opposite then-husband's Laurence Olivier's Caesar in a later London stage version.
• (1953): Serpent of the Nile: Rhonda Fleming (Cleopatra), Raymond Burr (Mark Antony), Michael Fox (Octavian).
• (1963): Cleopatra: Elizabeth Taylor (Cleopatra), Rex Harrison (Caesar), Richard Burton (Antony). Oscar-winning block-buster most (in)famously remembered for the off-screen affair between Taylor and Burton.
• (1964): Carry On Cleo, a spoof of the 1963 film, with Amanda Barrie as Cleopatra, Sid James as Mark Antony, and Kenneth Williams as Caesar.
• (1974): Antony & Cleopatra: performed by London's Royal Shakespeare Company. Starred Janet Suzman (Cleopatra), Richard Johnson (Antony), and Patrick Stewart (Enobarbus).
• (1999): Cleopatra (movie): Leonor Varela (Cleopatra), Timothy Dalton (Caesar), Billy Zane (Antony). Based on the book Memoirs of Cleopatra by Margaret George and closer to the facts than the others.

Teresa Pavlinek portrayed Cleopatra in an episode of History Bites set during the Battle of Actium.

Related Topics:
Teresa Pavlinek - History Bites

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A longer discussion of Cleopatra films is at: Cleopatra (movie).

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Cleopatra on TV

All seven queens bearing the name Cleopatra were featured in the BBC mini-series The Cleopatras (1983).

Related Topics:
Mini-series - 1983

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Paintings of Cleopatra

The most famous painting of Cleopatra is one that almost certainly no longer exists now: because the queen died in Egypt well before Augustus' triumph could be put on in Rome, in which she would have walked in chains, he commissioned a large painting of her, which was carried in his triumphal procession, and which may have represented her being poisoned by an asp. The sources for the story are Plut. Ant. 86 and App. Civ. II.102, although the latter may well refer to a statue, and Cass. Dio LI.21.3 reports that the "image" was of gold, and thus not a painting at all. The purported painting was seen and engraved in the early 19th century: it was in a private collection near Sorrento. Since then, this painting is said to have formed part of a collection in Cortona, but there no longer appears to be any trace of it; its quiet disappearance is almost certainly due to its being a fake. For comprehensive details on the entire question, see the external links at the end of this article.

Related Topics:
19th century - Sorrento - Cortona

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Otherwise, Cleopatra and her death have inspired hundreds of paintings from the Renaissance to our own time, none of them of any historical value of course; the subject appealing in particular to French academic painters. A very partial chronological list follows:

Related Topics:
Renaissance - French

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• Suicide of Cleopatra. Oil on canvas. 46 x 36-3/4 in. (116.8 x 93.3 cm) painted by Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, also called Guercino. Painted in 1621 and which hangs in the collection in the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, California. It shows Cleopatra and in her hand a snake that she prepares to use in her suicide.
• The Banquet of Cleopatra (1743–5). Oil on Canvas, 248.2 x 357.8cm. Painted by Giambattista Tiepolo (1696–1770), which hangs in the National Gallery of Victoria, Australia, depicting the banquet in which Cleopatra dissolves her pearl earring in a glass of vinegar.
• Cleopatra and the Peasant (1838). Oil on canvas. Painted by Eugène Delacroix. Hanging in the Ackland Art Museum, University of North Carolina. The work shows a man providing Cleopatra with the snake she uses to kill herself.
• Cleopatra and Caesar (Cléopâtre et César) (1866). Oil on canvas. Painted by Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824–1904). The original painting has been lost, and only copies remain. The work depicts Cleopatra standing before a seated Caesar, painted in the Orientalist style.
• The Death of Cleopatra, painted by Jean André Rixens, painted in 1874 and which hangs in the Musée des Augustins in Toulouse, France.