Death Of Cleopatra — 17th Century

After Simon Thomassin. Circle of Philippe Bertrand and Robert Le Lorrain.
End of the 17th Century — first half of the 18th Century.
Bronze with a red-brown patina. Ormolu pedestal and glass.
H. 7,4" (Statue 5,5". Pedestal 2").

This statuette is of Cleopatra VII naked in contrapposto, looking to the left, as she is bitten by the legendary aspick viper. This famous story inspired Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra. Shakespeare had read Sir Thomas North’s translation of Plutarch :

"Others say again, she kept it in a box, and that she did prick and thrust it with a spindle of gold, so that the aspick, being angered withal, leapt out with great fury, and bit her in the arm. Howbeit few can tell the troth. For they report also, that she had hidden poison in a hollow razor which she carried in the hair of her head ; and yet was there no mark seen on her body, or any sign discerned that she was poisoned, neither also did they kind this serpent in her tomb: but it was reported only, that there was seen certain fresh steps or tracks where it had gone, on the tomb-side toward the sea, and specially by the door-side. Some say also that they found two little pretty bitings in her arm, scant to be discerned : the which it seemeth Caesar himself gave credit unto, because in his triumph he carried Cleopatra’s image, with an aspick biting of her arm. And thus goeth the report of her death."

The very statue mentioned by Plutarch, given to Augustus in 29 BC to celebrate his triumph, has inspired a long tradition of depictions surrounding Cleopatra’s legendary death.

This bronze figurine is part of a long tradition depicting the death of Cleopatra, an interest reignited in Europe after the French humanist Jacques Amyot translated it into French in 1559.
 
A Death of Cleopatra, then considered ancient, and in marble, is mentioned in the inventory of the park of Versailles in 1689, where it still remains. This Cléopâtre antique, sculpted by the Jean-Baptiste Goy is based on an Italian model (likely a lost Cleopatra by Bandinelli, appearing in an etching by Agostino Veneziano in the mid-16th century) and features in Simon Thomassin’s Recueil des statues, groupes, fontaines, termes, vases, et autres magnifiques ornemens du château & parc de Versailles, published in 1694.

Thomassin's Cleopatra, however, grasps the serpent with her left hand, her head tilting to the left. The bronze statuette, thus, is closer to the engraving than the etching is to the sculpture it depicts. The bronze and the etching are indeed identical, except for the added voile de pudeur on the bronze. This proximity between the etchinig and the bronze suggests an origin between the late 17th Century and the 1720s, a period during which such sculptors as Philippe Bertrand, known for some bronze sculptures (like The Abduction of Psyche by Mercury, Windsor Castle) close to this Cleopatra, through their modesty, the quality of their drapery, their bronze craftsmanship, and the grace of nude bodies. Another sculptor from this period, Robert Le Lorrain, whose famous Bacchante (Metropolitan Museum), also based on an engraving which forms are refined by the sculptor, is alike this Death of Cleopatra : her slender limbs, her finely chiseled bronze, her modesty, and the movement of the whole.

Sources :

Plutarch, Antonius, trad. North
Hugh Chisholm, in Encyclopædia Britannica, vol. 19, s. v. “North, Sir Thomas”, Cambridge, 1911, p. 759
Comptes des Bâtiments du roi, 1664-1715, II, 464
Simon Thomassin, Recueil des statues, groupes, fontaines, termes, vases, et autres magnifiques ornemens du château & parc de Versailles, La Haye, 1724, p. 14
Jonathan Marsden, « Philippe Bertrand », dans Bronzes français de la Renaissance au Siècle des Lumières, Barcelone, 2008
Guilhem Scherf, « Robert Le Lorrain », dans Bronzes français de la Renaissance au Siècle des Lumières, Barcelone, 2008