A study for the painting in the Galeria d'arte del Comune in the Palazzo Rosso, Genoa, D.M. Stone, op. cit., no. 235. The painting, commissioned by Abbot Carlo Emanuele Durazzo, is mentioned in Guercino's Libri di Conti, p. 329, as 'Cleopatra in letto moribonda a mons. Carlo Durazzi'. The painter was paid 156 scudi on 24 March 1648. Another painting of the same subject, now lost, was painted for a Genoese dealer living at Rome, Girolamo Pavesi.
A red chalk drawing of Cleopatra, very similar in composition to the Palazzo Rosso picture and the present sheet, was sold in these Rooms, 8 July 1975, lot 28, illustrated, now in an American private collection, D. Stone, Guercino, Master Draftsman, exhib. cat., Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, 1991, fig. XIII.
Sir Denis Mahon has kindly confirmed the attribution.