Thursday, September 3, 2015

Caesar and Cleopatra (1866)

Jean-Léon Gérôme: Caesar and Cleopatra

The work was originally commissioned by the courtesan La Païva but she was unhappy with the finished painting and returned it to Gérôme. It was exhibited at the Salon of 1866 and the Royal Academy of Arts in 1871.

Gérôme's painting is one of the earliest modern depictions of Cleopatra emerging from a carpet in the presence of Caesar, a minor historical inaccuracy that arose out of the translation of a scene from Plutarch's Life of Caesar and the semantic change of the word "carpet" over time. [Wikipedia]

No comments:

Post a Comment