The Death of Cleopatra

Although a common subject in Baroque art, the death of Cleopatra does not seem to be one that Giordano treated frequently. Following Octavian’s invasion of Egypt, Cleopatra is widely believed to have smuggled an asp in a basket of figs in order to take her own life. Giordano depicts a moment of dramatic tension: we see the Egyptian Queen in the last moments of her life as the asp rears its head, tongue out, ready to deliver its fatal bite. The figure in the background raises their arms, open-mouthed, presumably foreshadowing the intended reaction of the viewer. Although the asp is said to have arrived in a basket of figs, Giordano uses some creative license to change the fruit to grapes. This was possibly inspired by still-life painter Abraham Brueghel, with whom Giordano collaborated in Naples, and whose influence Spinosa notes in the ‘iridescent’ fruit (Naples, 2001, op. cit.).

Although scholars agree that this picture dates from the end of Giordano’s career, there is some debate about when exactly it was painted. When it was first published in 1993, Garstand suggested it was created around 1702-4 (op. cit.), largely consistent with Spinosa who dates the painting to c. 1700, because of stylistic affinities with works created at the end of the artist’s stay in Spain (2001, op. cit.). Scavizzi and de Vito date the painting to earlier, around the late 1680s/early 1690s, after the artist’s return from Florence and before his departure for Spain (op. cit.). Giordano visited Venice several decades earlier, but de Vito and Spinosa agree that the lingering impact of the ‘warm, sensuous, and radiant luminosity’ of the Venetian school is present in this picture, in turn re-influencing Venetian painters of the subsequent generation, including Sebastiano Ricci and Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini (op. cit.).