THE PROPERTY OF THE MARGARET BROWN COLLECTION
Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, O.M., R.A. (1836-1912)

Details
Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, O.M., R.A. (1836-1912)

The Meeting of Anthony and Cleopatra: 41BC

signed and inscribed 'L Alma-Tadema OPCCXLV1'; oil on panel
25¾ x 36¼in. (65.5 x 92.3cm.)
Provenance
Commissioned by Samuel W. Hank, New York, 1883
Sold in 1887 to Frau von Munkhausen, who still had it 1897
Sir Joseph Benjamin Robinson, 1923, and thence by descent to his daughter, Princess Labia
With Messrs James Coats, New York
Allen Funt, 1966
With Leger Gallery, London
With Galerie Royal, Vancouver, 1978
Literature
The artist's correspondence, 1882; see Swanson, loc.cit., 1990, for details
Illustrated London News, April 1887, p.457 repr.
F.G. Stephens, Lawrence Alma-Tadema, R.A: A Sketch of his Life and Work, 1895, repr. pl.xvii
F.I. Bulgakov, Alma-Tadema, Petrograd, 1897, pp.30-31, repr. p.38
Rudolf Dircks, 'The Later Works of Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema', Art Journal, Christmas Supplement, 1910, p.31
Mario Amaya, 'The Painter who inspired Hollywood', Sunday Times Magazine, 18 February 1968, p.31
David Larkin, Temptations, 1975, repr. pl.22
Vern G. Swanson, Alma-Tadema, 1977, repr. p.45
Christopher Wood, Olympian Dreamers, 1983, repr. p.120
Vern G. Swanson, The Biography and Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings of Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, 1990, pp.219-20, no.283, and repr. p.415 (bibliography gives further references)
Exhibited
London, Grosvenor Gallery, Winter 1882 (not in catalogue)
London, Grosvenor Gallery, 1883, no.122
Berlin, Royal Academy, Autumn 1887
Berlin, Fritz Gurlitt's Salon, 1888
Birmingham, Royal Birmingham Society of Artists, 31st Spring Exhibition, 1896, no.646
Royal Academy Diploma Gallery, 1958, no.81
Ottawa, National Gallery of Canada, Victorian Artists of England, 1965, no.2
Palm Beach, Society of Four Arts, 1966, no.4
New York, Metropolitan Museum, Victorians in Togas: Paintings by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema from the Collection of Allen Funt, March 1973, no.21

Lot Essay

Professor Vern Swanson has discussed the painting as follows in his recent catalogue raisonné of Alma-Tadema's work:

'Cleopatra, seductively ensconed on her barge, is about to receive Mark Anthony in the waters off Alexandria. The episode is from Shakespeare's play, Anthony and Cleopatra (II.ii). Less than a year earlier Alma-Tadema had painted Ludwig Barnay as Mark Anthony (No 276, 1882), probably begun when Barnay was playing at the Drury Lane Theatre in late 1881. The Meeting of Anthony and Cleopatra might also owe its origins to the same theatrical engagement. It was begun early in 1882 but was not Alma-Tadema's paramount painting project until about May of that year. In a letter to Ebers in November, he wrote: "The picture that troubles me most just now is still Cleopatra and Marc Anthony that is their meeting in Alexandria water for the first time after Tarsus, both [are] in boats and the Roman trireme in the background besides blue sky and sea, I hope to have it finished by the end of the month."

The picture is typical of Alma-Tadema's mixing of Egypto-Roman genre. The hieroglyphic cartouche on the boat translates 'Mistress of Two-Lands, Cleo'. She holds a crook and flail, symbols of her queenship. Her throne is decorated with a pair of carved baboons, which represent Thoth, god of writing and thought. Bulgakov assures us that the head of Cleopatra was modelled after the portrait bust of Helen Zimmern's mother, Bernice. According to Raven, the idea of combining a chapel with Hathor columns and a ship was borrowed from Sir J. Gardner Wilkinson's 1837 book on Egyptian antiquities.'

The artist had already painted two half-length single figures of Cleopatra, similar in pose to the figure in our picture; one, dating from 1875, is now in the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney (Swanson, no.184); the other, painted two years later, is in the Auckland City Art Gallery, New Zealand (Swanson, no.223).

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