BEING CLEOPATRA: sculpture

Showing posts with label sculpture. Show all posts

Thursday, March 22, 2012

Cleopatra Through the Artist's Eye: Leonhard Kern

Cleopatra

1652

Ivory carving

Kunstkammer Würth, Sammlung Würth Inv. 5244, at the Bode-Museum, Berlin, Germany.

Leonhard Kern (1588-1662)

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Cleopatra Through the Artist's Eye: William Wetmore Story

Click here to buy the book William Wetmore Story and His Friends: From Letters, Diaries, and Recollections

Cleopatra

1858

Marble

William Wetmore Story (1819–1895)

American Wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Neoclassical sculptors often drew upon mythology, ancient history, the Bible, and classical and contemporary literature for their subject matter. The statues of Harvard-educated William Wetmore Story exemplify this inclination, and Cleopatra, his most famous work, was only one of dozens of subjects such as Medea, Delilah, Electra, and Saul that were produced in his studio. "Cleopatra" is highly representative of Story's oeuvre: most of his statues are single figures in the round, often seated deep in thought meditating on deeds of cataclysmic significance; here Cleopatra contemplates her suicide. The sculptor was renowned for the archaeological exactitude of the props and costumes of his figures. The attention paid to historical accuracy is matched by the virtuosity of the carving.

Click here to buy the book William Wetmore Story and His Friends: From Letters, Diaries, and Recollections

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Cleopatra Through the Artist's Eye

Statue of a Ptolemaic Queen, with the cartouche of a Cleopatra PeriodPtolemaic Period (200–30 B.C.)

The cartouche reading "Cleopatra" on this statue's arm presents unusual features and is considered by some to be a modern addition. The statue does, however, represent a Ptolemaic queen holding a cornucopia. Attributes and dress point to a date in the second or first century B.C., and one recent study notes that details of the queen's hairstyle actually suggest an identification with Cleopatra VII.

Thursday, December 22, 2011

Cleopatra Through the Artist's Eye: Margaret Foley

Cleopatra

Modeled 1871

Carved 1876

Margaret Foley (1820-1877)

Smithsonian American Art Museum 3rd Floor, Luce Foundation Center

Cleopatra was one of many works that Margaret Foley completed while suffering symptoms of a brain illness. She completed the bust, along with an eight-foot fountain of three life-size children, for the Women’s Pavilion at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition of 1876. Cleopatra has been portrayed in literature as an ambitious queen and seducer of powerful men. Her passionate love affair with the Roman general Mark Antony is the basis for one of Shakespeare’s famous plays. The twinned snakes in Cleopatra’s crown evoke the kingdoms of Egypt as well as the queen’s manner of death. Rather than being taken prisoner, Cleopatra chose suicide, dying from the bite of a poisonous snake. Perhaps Foley was making a professional statement when she sculpted Cleopatra: the strong features and forceful gaze suggest the artist’s confidence in the power of women in a man’s world.

Sunday, November 20, 2011

Cleopatra Through the Artist's Eye: Alfonso Balzico

Cleopatra

1874 (approx.)

Museo d'Arte moderna in Rome

Alfonso Balzico (1825-1901)

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Cleopatra Through the Artist's Eye

Photo: Sebastià Giralt

Cleopatra VII

Graeco-Roman Museum in Alexandria, Egypt

Monday, September 19, 2011

Cleopatra Through the Artist's Eye: Ancient Egypt

Picture Source: Rogue Classicism

Head of Cleopatra VII

Granite

Sculpture, probably of Cleopatra VII

Early Ptolemaic, Egypt, 50 - 30 BC, 910.75

Located at the Royal Ontario Museum

Once identified simply as "an early Ptolemaic queen or goddess," this beautiful granite bust was recently elevated to star status when proven to be a likeness of one of the most famous women in history, Cleopatra VII. ROM Egyptologist Roberta Shaw made the discovery while reading a catalogue of the British Museum's exhibition Cleopatra of Egypt. In the catalogue, she noticed that a female bust, identified by British scholars as Cleopatra, looked intriguingly similar to the ROM's unidentified statue. After comparing its attributes to known images of Cleopatra in consultation with leading Cleopatra expert Dr. Sally-Ann Ashton, Shaw connected the dots, concluding that the ROM's bust is likely the sister to another Cleopatra statue found in Alexandria.

The ROM's Cleopatra is remarkably similar to its Alexandrian counterpart; the same wig, the same features, the same size. But the key feature that nails the ROM statue's identity is the unusual back pillar with attached crown. Now recognized as a "missing link," the ROM's sculpture is believed to be a very early representation of Cleopatra as Egyptian Queen; the Alexandrian statue represents her as Egyptian goddess. Still, Shaw cautions, "No image of Cleopatra has ever been proven beyond all possible doubt to be the famed Egyptian queen, including ours."

One of only three pieces of Ptolemaic sculpture like it in the world, the ROM's Head of Cleopatra also led to another revelation: it turns out that the practice of "copying" earlier statues was started by Cleopatra herself. Previously it was thought the practice began about 50 years later, during the Imperial Roman period. The Head of Cleopatra is on display in the ROM's Galleries of Africa: Egypt on level 3.

Iconic Cleopatra

March 19, 2009 This granite bust is most likely a representation of one of history's most famous women Cleopatra and is on display in the Galleries of Africa: Egypt. An iconic object in the ROM's collection, only three pieces of Ptolemaic sculpture like this exist in the world today.

-Description by the Royal Ontario Museum