Cleopatra: Once bitten, never shy
Asp-irants, from left, Elizabeth Taylor, Amanda Barrie and Claudette Colbert.
I’ve been intrigued by Cleopatra ever since Liz Taylor poured herself into a gilt bustier and flimsy silk for Joseph Mankiewicz’s epic 1963 movie, but adolescent cravings aside, she was one helluva woman. (Cleopatra, not Liz.) (Well, okay, Liz too.)
The Guardian got me lusting – that is to say, thinking – about Cleo again recently with an essay by Lucy Hughes-Hallett, author of “Cleopatra: Queen, Lover, Legend”. Her depictions in art, not to mention the movies, warrant a quick whip round Egypt. Mind the camels – they spit in your general direction.
The daughter of one of Alexander’s generals and the last queen of Egypt, Shakespeare’s “serpent of old Nile” came close to sinking Rome before it got up its full steam. She married twice, both times to her brothers, one of whom died in battle against her, the other possibly murdered on her orders.
This is Michelangelo’s Cleo, one of many drawings he gave to Tommaso Cavalieri. Tommy boy gave it in turn, rather reluctantly, to Duke Cosimo I dei Medici. Those troublesome Medicis do keep cropping up; there’s another one renting a room at Dali House soon. See the rest.
