Cleopatra and the Peasant

Cleopatra and the Peasant is an 1838 history painting by the French artist Eugène Delacroix.^[1] Romantic in style, it depicts the moments before the Death of Cleopatra. Planning to commit suicide after the defeat of her forces at the hands of Augustus during the War of Actium, the Queen of Egypt prepares to commit suicide with an asp brought to her by the peasant on the left. Delacroix based Cleopatra on the artist Elisa Boulanger who he had a brief relationship with.^[2]

Cleopatra and the Peasant
Artist	Eugène Delacroix
Year	1838
Type	Oil on canvas, history painting
Dimensions	97.8 cm × 127 cm (38.5 in × 50 in)
Location	Ackland Art Museum, North Carolina

It reveals a new influence on the artist of the Caravaggesque painters of the seventeenth century.^[3] Delacroix exhibited the painting at the Salon of 1839 at the Louvre in Paris.^[4] Today it is in the collection of the Ackland Art Museum at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.^[5]