Cleopatra

Grazia Leonardo called Leonardo da Pistoia

(Pistoia 1503 - Naples post 1548)

In all likelihood this painting came into the Borghese Collection from that of Benedetto Martiniani. For years it was considered the pendant of Lucretia (inv. no. 75). Critics variously attributed it to a follower of Baldassarre Peruzzi, to Jacopino del Conte and, finally, to Leonardo Grazia of Pistoia. The work depicts Queen Cleopatra, portrayed here with an elaborate hairstyle, while an apse wrapped around her neck like a necklace is about to bite one of her breasts. According to tradition, in fact, when she learned of Anthony's death, the Egyptian sovereign decided to kill herself by having a basket containing a snake brought to her, whose potent poison took her life and those of  her two faithful handmaidens.

Object details

Commentary

In Paola della Pergola’s view (1959), the painting came from the collection of the elder Olimpia Aldobrandini, described in two 17th-century inventories of her belongings: the first, dated 1626, described ‘a work with Cleopatra reclining, on a long panel, by Meccharino da Siena’, while that of 1682 listed ‘a work of Cleopatra letting her left breast be bitten, on a chipped, broken panel, roughly three and a half spans high [...]’ (see Della Pergola 1959). According to this scholar (1959), the Borghese work was undoubtedly the same as the Cleopatra in the Aldobrandini collection; she added that the crack in the panel mentioned in the inventory provided further proof of her hypothesis. As fascinating as this theory is, it is marred by the fact that the painting in question does not correspond to the descriptions of the two inventories: while the earlier inventory clearly refers to ‘Cleopatra reclining’, both expressly cite ‘panel’ – and not slate – as the support material.

In light of the improbability of the work’s connection with Aldobrandini, Andrea G. De Marchi (2014) proposed a new theory in the wake of his research on Giovanni Francesco Salernitano’s 17th-century collection (in Pietra dipinta 2000): Cleopatra came into possession of the Borghese following the sale of the Meniconi collection in Perugia, the works of which were dispersed beginning in 1651 and sold on the Roman market shortly thereafter; this collection indeed contained a painting with a similar subject. Yet in spite of the fact that this hypothesis is more credible than Della Pergola’s, the present writer deems it opportune to maintain the provenance indicated in the 1693 Borghese inventory, a detail that critics have more or less ignored. In that document, the work is listed as ‘from Martiniani’, that is, Benedetto Martiniani, a landowner who in 1620 transferred to Scipione Borghese his vineyard together with a dozen paintings. Many of these were executed on stone and precious metals, including ‘a work of three palms on German stone with the portrait of a woman with a snake wrapped around her neck, with its head at her breast’ (Inv. 1693).

The painting depicts Cleopatra, daughter of Egyptian Pharaoh Ptolemy XII, while an asp wrapped around her neck like a necklace is about to bite one of her breasts. She is portrayed her with her typical attributes: according to Plutarch, in fact, upon learning of Anthony’s death, the woman planned her suicide, first having a warm bath prepared for her and arranging her exquisite diadem in her long hair. She then secretly gave orders for a basket containing a snake to be brought to her. As the author of the Parallel Lives narrates, the asp injected its potent poison into Cleopatra’s body, killing the courageous monarch together with her two faithful handmaidens.

According to Frederick M. Clapp (1916), the work was inspired by a drawing by Michelangelo Buonarroti. At first attributed to Giulio Romano (Vasi 1794), the painting was later ascribed to Bronzino (Morelli 1897). While Adolfo Venturi (1893) accepted this idea, it was forcefully rejected by Roberto Longhi (1928), who believed that two different artists had a hand in its execution. For her part, Paola della Pergola (1959), starting from the attribution given in the Aldobrandini inventory, cautiously suggested the name of Baldassarre Peruzzi; yet her theory was rejected by Pierluigi Leone de Castris (1988), among others. De Castris rather proposed that the painting was by Leonardo Grazia of Pistoia, who executed it together with Lucretia (inv. no. 75) and the nude Venus (inv. no. 92) – both in the Borghese Collection – during his stay in Rome. This theory has been favourably received by critics, in particular Andrea G. De Marchi (1994; in Pietra dipinta 2000; 2014) and most recently Michela Corso (2018); the present writer also concurs with this attribution. The work in fact shows the same characteristic idioms found in other paintings by him: these demonstrate the influences of Giulio Romano, Perin del Vaga and Parmigianino on his style, stimuli filtered through his response to the production of Jacopino and Bronzino. The synthesis of these various elements, absorbed between Rome, Naples and Tuscany, form the context of this Cleopatra, the lustful, melancholic victim who falls half way between a Christian martyr submitting to her destiny and a sensual goddess pursuing her intrigues with cynicism and sarcasm.

Antonio Iommelli