Death of Cleopatra

Artemisia Gentileschi painted Death of Cleopatra around 1613, one of her early treatments of the Egyptian queen's death that she would return to throughout her career. The young Cleopatra — depicted as a beautiful woman in the moments of dying by asp bite — combines the erotic convention of the reclining female nude with the dramatic narrative of a queen choosing death over defeat. Artemisia's early treatment shows her engagement with the tradition of the dying Cleopatra — established through ancient sculpture and Renaissance painting — while beginning to inflect it with the direct, unsparing quality that would characterize her mature work. The work was produced in the early period of her independent career in Florence.

The dying queen is rendered with bold Caravaggesque chiaroscuro, the dramatic contrast between the pale flesh and the dark background characteristic of Artemisia's early, more sharply contrasted manner.