How you can use this image
This image can be used for non-commercial research or private study purposes, and other UK exceptions to copyright permitted to users based in the United Kingdom under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, as amended and revised. Any other type of use will need to be cleared with the rights holder(s).
Review the copyright credit lines that are located underneath the image, as these indicate who manages the copyright (©) within the artwork, and the photographic rights within the image.
The collection that owns the artwork may have more information on their own website about permitted uses and image licensing options.
Review our guidance pages which explain how you can reuse images, how to credit an image and how to find images in the public domain or with a Creative Commons licence available.
Buy a print or image licence
You can purchase this reproduction
If you have any products in your basket we recommend that you complete your purchase from Art UK before you leave our site to avoid losing your purchases.
Notes
Add or edit a note on this artwork that only you can see. You can find notes again by going to the ‘Notes’ section of your account.
A naked woman reclines on a luxurious bed, a small pink snake wriggling through her fingers. This is Cleopatra, the last Ptolemaic queen of Egypt, encouraging an asp to bite and poison her – according to some accounts, the cause of her death. Famous for her beauty and her love affairs with the Roman generals Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, she died in 30 BC after the defeat of her and Mark Antony’s forces by Octavian, the future Roman emperor. Working out who made this painting is made difficult by the fact that the artist was a poor draughtsman and an incompetent painter, but seems to have been copying the work of a more skilful and imaginative artist. There is a strong stylistic resemblance between this painting and pictures by Simon de Mailly, who is known for creating pastiches based on paintings by better artists.
Title
Cleopatra
Date
16th C
Medium
Oil on wood
Measurements
H 46 x W 46 cm
Accession number
NG5762
Acquisition method
Bequeathed by Maurice Woolf Jacobson, 1947
Work type
Painting
