''The Dying Cleopatra'' or ''The Death of Cleopatra'' is a c. 1648 oil on canvas painting by

Guercino Giovanni Francesco Barbieri (February 8, 1591 – December 22, 1666),Miller, 1964 better known as Guercino, or il Guercino , was an Italian Baroque painter and draftsman from Cento in the Emilia region, who was active in Rome and Bologna. The vig ...

, now in the

Palazzo Rosso The Palazzo Brignole Sale or Palazzo Rosso is a house museum located in Via Garibaldi, in the historical center of Genoa, in Northwestern Italy. The palace is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site Genoa: Le Strade Nuove and the system of the Pa ...

Genoa Genoa ( ; it, Genova ; lij, Zêna ). is the capital of the Italian region of Liguria and the List of cities in Italy, sixth-largest city in Italy. In 2015, 594,733 people lived within the city's administrative limits. As of the 2011 Italian ce ...

. P. Bagni, D. De Grazia, D. Mahon, F. Gozzi and A. Emiliani, ''Giovanni Francesco Barbieri Il Guercino 1591-1666'', a cura di Denis Mahon, Bologna, Nuova Alfa Editoriale, 1991, ISBN 9788877792846, p. 310.

History

The painter is recorded as receiving 125 ducatoni (equivalent to 156

scudi The ''scudo'' (pl. ''scudi'') was the name for a number of coins used in various states in the Italian peninsula until the 19th century. The name, like that of the French écu and the Spanish and Portuguese escudo, was derived from the Latin ''scu ...

) on 24 March 1648 from Monsignor Carlo Emanuele Durazzo of Genoa for a work on this subject. Initially owned by the abbots' two nephews, about a century later it was owned byt the Brignole family, in whose residence it was recorded in 1756–66. It remained with them until 1889 when the last surviving member of the house

Maria Brignole Sale Maria Brignole Sale De Ferrari, Duchess of Galliera (5 April 1811 – 9 December 1888) was an Italian noblewoman and philanthropist. She enabled the foundation of the first museums in her birthplace of Genoa, the Palazzo Rosso and Palazzo Bianco ...

, duchess of

Galliera Galliera ( Northern Bolognese: ) is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Metropolitan City of Bologna in the Italian region Emilia-Romagna, located about north of Bologna. Galliera borders the following municipalities: Malalbergo, Pieve di Cento, ...

, left it to the city, which displayed it in palazzo Bianco, then its current home. P. Boccardo, ''La Galleria di Palazzo Rosso Genova'', Milano, Federico Garolla Editore, 1992, pp. 49-51. Guercino produced another lower-quality work on the same subject around 1650, since on 8 March that year its commmissioner Girolamo Panesi, a Genoese resident of Rome, paid him 110 ducatoni (equivalent to 132 scudi).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dying Cleopatra, The Paintings by Guercino Paintings depicting Cleopatra Paintings about suicide 1648 paintings Paintings in the Musei di Strada Nuova Nude art