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Cleopatra Siena
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Artist: Domenico Beccafumi
Year: 1505-1506
Current location: Collezione Chigi Saracini
Original location:
DESCRIPTIVE INFORMATION
Oil on panel, 77 x 44.7 cm, from a headboard in a noble bedroom.
In Siena, shortly after Girolamo di Benvenuto's painting "Cleopatra and the Asp," the Egyptian queen reappears among the heroines of a triad, painted by the young Domenico Beccafumi, in which the serpent loses its emblematic value and becomes a mere attribute.
The figure of the Egyptian queen, astonishing both for her beauty and the ethereal elegance of the fabrics of her dress, which flutter in a light breeze, appears impervious to the bite of the reptile, whose movement echoes that of the veil rising in curls above her head.
In the scene, arranged like an idyll and devoid of any dramatic character, Cleopatra observes the reptile with an enigmatic yet serene expression, seemingly more concerned with maintaining a graceful pose than terrified by impending death.
The landscape, too, with its delicacy and indistinct hues, accentuates the hazy, vaporous softness that envelops the work.
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