''Cleopatra and Caesar'' (french: links=no, Cléopâtre et César), also known as ''Cleopatra Before Caesar'', is an oil on canvas painting by the French Academic artist Jean-Léon Gérôme, completed in 1866. The work was originally commissioned by the French 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 The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its purpo ...

in 1871. Gérôme's painting is one of the earliest modern depictions of

Cleopatra Cleopatra VII Philopator ( grc-gre, Κλεοπάτρα Φιλοπάτωρ}, "Cleopatra the father-beloved"; 69 BC10 August 30 BC) was Queen of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt from 51 to 30 BC, and its last active ruler.She was also a ...

emerging from a carpet in the presence of

Julius Caesar Gaius Julius Caesar (; ; 12 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC), was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in a civil war, and ...

, 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. The work is considered a classic example of Egyptomania and was mass-produced by Goupil, allowing it to reach a wide audience. The painting was held by California banker Darius Ogden Mills and remained in the Mills family art collection for over a century until it was sold to a private collector in 1990.

Background

Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824–1904) was a nineteenth century French painter and sculptor. At the age of twenty-three, he came to the attention of the art world at the Salon of 1847 with '' The Cock Fight'' (1846), a Neo-Grec painting that was praised by Théophile Gautier. With works informed by his frequent travels throughout the Middle East and visits to Egypt, Gérôme specialized in

historical History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well ...

and Orientalist painting and became known as a leader of the Academic art movement. According to historian Charles Sowerwine, Gérôme

painted erotic subjects with a photographic approach and sensual charge, but avoided 'indecency' by the use of Oriental and historical contexts . . . To us, Gérôme's nudes seem pornographic, but to contemporaries they were idealized by their removal from contemporary society and their insertion in the Oriental context.Sowerwine, Charles (2009). ''France Since 1870: Culture, Society and the Making of the Republic''. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 46-47. ..

French writer Prosper Mérimée first proposed the subject of ''Cleopatra and Caesar'' in a letter sent to Gérôme in December 1860. La Païva, a wealthy French courtesan, later commissioned the painting from Gérôme, intending it for display in the

Hôtel de la Païva The Hôtel de la Païva ("Mansion of La Païva") is a hôtel particulier, a type of large townhouse of France, that was built between 1856 and 1866, at 25 Avenue des Champs-Élysées by the courtesan Esther Lachmann, better known as ''La Païva'' ...

, her mansion on the Champs-Élysées. According to American art critic

Earl Shinn Earl Shinn (November 8, 1838 – November 3, 1886) was an American art critic and art historian who often wrote under the pseudonym "Edward Strahan." Early life and career Shinn was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the youngest child of ...

, the work was originally painted on silk and was designed as a "transparency to be lowered or raised midway of a long saloon" in La Païva's mansion, "which it was desirable to divide occasionally into two".Shinn, Earl dward Strahan(1881).
Gerome: A Collection of the Works of J.L. Gerome in One Hundred Photogravures
'. Volume 10, Plate 6. Samuel L. Hall. .

Development

Gérôme made at least two previous oil paintings and a number of sketches in preparation for the work. One shows

lying on the ground stretching out to

with

Apollodorus Apollodorus (Ancient Greek, Greek: Ἀπολλόδωρος ''Apollodoros'') was a popular name in ancient Greece. It is the masculine gender of a noun compounded from Apollo, the deity, and doron, "gift"; that is, "Gift of Apollo." It may refer to: ...

crouching behind her. In one variation before the finished version, Caesar is shown by himself with his hands on the desk (instead of outstretched) without his four secretaries. When the work was finished in 1866, Cleopatra's position changed to show her standing before Caesar with Apollodorus bent down beside her.Trafton, Scott (2004). ''Egypt Land: Race and Nineteenth-Century American Egyptomania''. Duke University Press. pp. 198, 298–299. . . Gérôme painted the scene based on the meeting between Cleopatra and Caesar written in the '' Life of Caesar'' by Greek historian Plutarch (c. AD 46 – AD 120) more than a century after the incident took place. Even though Gérôme visited Egypt in 1857, where George W. Whiting of Rice University notes "he acquired numerous abundant local color and exact detail" that informed the painting of ''Cleopatra and Caesar'',Whiting, George W. (1960).
The Cleopatra Rug Scene: Another Source
" ''The Shaw Review'', 3 (1): 15–17. January. the Egyptian background setting in the work is derived from a plate in a volume from the '' Description de l'Égypte'' (1809–29) that depicts a temple at

Deir el-Medina Deir el-Medina ( arz, دير المدينة), or Dayr al-Madīnah, is an ancient Egyptian workmen's village which was home to the artisans who worked on the tombs in the Valley of the Kings during the 18th to 20th Dynasties of the New Kingdom of ...

Completion and exhibition

La Païva disliked the finished painting she had commissioned and returned it to Gérôme. Ackerman notes that La Païva felt the work was too expensive. Gérôme modified the painting by adding canvas to the back for strength, and it was subsequently purchased by his father-in-law, Adolphe Goupil (1806–1893) of Goupil & Cie, the leading art dealership in nineteenth-century France. Gérôme first met Goupil in 1859 and married his daughter Marie several years later.Papet, Edoard; Laurence des Cars; Dominique de Font-Réaulx (2006).
The Spectacular Art of Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824–1904)
." Musée d'Orsay. Retrieved June 6, 2015. ''Cleopatra and Caesar'' was one of three works Gérôme presented at the Salon of 1866 where it was exhibited with the title ''César et Cléopâtre''. The painting appeared at the

exhibition in 1871 under the longer name ''Cléopâtre apportée à César dans un tapis'' (''Cleopatra brought to Caesar in a carpet'').Graves, Algernon (1905).
The Royal Academy of Arts: A Complete Dictionary of Contributors and their Work from its Foundation in 1769 to 1904
'. Volume 3. London: H. Graves and co., ltd. p. 226. .

Description

The painting depicts the year 47 BC, when Cleopatra stands before Julius Caesar after Apollodorus, her servant, has just finished smuggling her into the palace inside a rug. The figures are shown approximately half life-size.Ackerman, Gerald M. (1986). ''The Life and Work of Jean-Léon Gérôme''. Sotheby's Publications. p. 218. . . Since the 1866 exhibition, the work has become known by other titles, such as ''Cleopatra Before Caesar'', and more recently, ''Cleopatra and Caesar''.Humbert, Jean-Marcel; Michael Pantazzi; Christiane Ziegler (1994). ''Egyptomania''. National Gallery of Canada. pp. 574-575. . .

Critical reception

The American Egyptomania project at

George Mason University George Mason University (George Mason, Mason, or GMU) is a public research university in Fairfax County, Virginia with an independent City of Fairfax, Virginia postal address in the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Area. The university was origin ...

describes the painting as a classic example of Egyptomania, containing "sex, slavery, nudity, and decadence". Lucy H. Hooper called it a companion piece to Gérôme's earlier work, ''

Phryne before the Areopagus ''Phryne before the Areopagus'' () is an 1861 painting by the French artist Jean-Léon Gérôme. The subject matter is Phryne, a legendary courtesan in ancient Greece who was put on trial for impiety. Phryne was acquitted after her defender Hypere ...

'' (1861).Hooper, Lucy H. (1877).
Léon Gérôme
" ''The Art Journal'', 3: 26–28. The painting was one of two notable depictions of Cleopatra from the nineteenth century along with '' Cleopatra and the Peasant'' (1838) by Eugène Delacroix.Grafton, Anthony; Glenn W Most; Salvatore Settis (2010). ''The Classical Tradition''. Harvard University Press. p. 207. . .

Historical inaccuracy

A translation of Plutarch's ''Life of Caesar'' by John Langhorne and his brother William published in 1770 was the first source to use the word "carpet" to describe the material used by Cleopatra's servant to sneak her into the palace. Although the original meaning used by Plutarch was more akin to what is today known as a duffel bag, at the time of Langhorne's translation a carpet meant a type of "thick fabric", not an actual rug. But by the nineteenth century, semantic change led to the word taking on a different meaning. The legend of Cleopatra hiding in a rug, although historically inaccurate, became the most popular image, with Gérôme one of the first to popularize it in modern art.Pelling, Christopher (2011). ''Plutarch Caesar: Translated with an Introduction and Commentary''. Oxford University Press. p. 385. . .

Influence

Gérôme's professional relationship with art collector Adolphe Goupil allowed his paintings to become mass-produced in the form of engravings and photographs, reaching more people and impacting the wider culture throughout Britain and the United States. Over time, both theatrical and Hollywood productions about Cleopatra looked to Gérôme's painting for inspiration.Not just theatre and film but also art. ''Dream of the Shulamite'' (1934), an oil on canvas by American painter R. H. Ives Gammell, is said to show the influence of Gérôme's ''Cleopatra and Caesar'', in both its idea and composition. See Ackerman, Gerald M. and Elizabeth Ives Hunter (2001). ''Transcending Vision: R. H. Ives Gammell 1893–1981''. R.H. Ives Gammell Studios Trust. p. 104. .Morcillo, Marta Garcia; Pauline Hanesworth (2015). ''Imagining Ancient Cities in Film: From Babylon to Cinecittà''. Routledge. pp. 118, 176, 181. . . Whiting argues that Gérôme's work may have influenced Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw's play '' Caesar and Cleopatra'' (1898), particularly the carpet scene in Act III. Many of Gérôme's history paintings influenced the composition of cinematic scenes portraying ancient history.

Provenance

The painting was bought by California banker, philanthropist, and New York real estate developer Darius Ogden Mills in the 1870s and remained in the Mills family art collection until it was sold to a private collector in 1990.New York Top Art
". ''Yareah Magazine''. April 24, 2014.