The Cleopatra mystery, exhibition in Paris on the Queen of Egypt

Hundreds of Pharaohs who have followed one another on the throne of Egypt for three millennia, Cleopatra VII is the last, the best known and one of the very rare women to play this role. Born in 69 BC, from the Ptolemies family-a dynasty of Greek kings controlling the country for three centuries-it reigned up to 30 BCE.

On the first floor of the Institute of the Arab World, in Paris, the exhibition first presents this ancient oriental world, now upset by the appetites of Rome which made Egypt a simple province, an wheat attic of a republic by turning into empire.

Cleopatra, last pharaonne of Egypt in the face of the grip of Rome

Cleopatra seeks to emancipate himself from this supervision and his connections, first with Julius Caesar (100 -44 BC), then, after his assassination, with Marc Antoine (83-30 BC), testify to an asserted political will, without being able to grasp his thought. Because the testimonies of his reign are mostly indirect: apart from a few profiles on currencies, we have no guaranteed portrait.

We know that she has raised temples where she is represented in the guise of a pharaonic Isis. However, only one papyrus – presented in the course – probably carries a few words of his hand with his signature. “Is it not extraordinary, that the life of the woman probably the most famous since Antiquity is so little scientifically documented?” Asks Claude Mollard, general commissioner in the catalog of an exhibition which stages this opposition between reality difficult to grasp and the omnipresent myth, immediately.

In this first part, therefore, the archaeological pieces present the context of its reign: the prosperity of Egypt under the Ptolemeans and the prodigious development of Alexandria, the “light city” of the time, with its library and its museum. Virtual reconstructions help visitors imagine the importance of this Mediterranean port where also, in the third century BC, the Bible had been translated into Greek, within a powerful Jewish diaspora.

But as soon as we go upstairs, we await the Roman then Christian and Arab sources on Cleopatra. Interesting initiative of “verification of facts” because it is rather rare than books are shown, in support of the cartels. The visitor can thus read how this extraordinary destiny fascinated and fed very quickly contrasting legends.

Obviously, ancient writers-in the wake of Octave (future Augustus emperor) who defeated Marc-Antoine and Cleopatra at the battle of Actium, leading to their suicide-describe the Queen of Egypt as a crazy seductress, with shocking morals. However, later Egyptian sources, both Christian and Muslim, will sing the praises of a protective, building and cultivated state chef!

A controversial queen: between Roman propaganda and Oriental heritage

The continuation of the course is therefore devoted to the different Western artistic interpretations of this character, since the mystery that surrounds him allows him to put on all the roles: in classical painting, she is a new tempting Eve, while romantic artists will insist on her suicide, by snake bite.

To all eras, however, the fascination for this politician overflows with eroticism: Cleopatra can only be a seductress, and the orientalist painters will seize her, in the 19th century, in the lascivious and decadent odalisque, symbol of these East countries whose beauty we admire but whose so-called passivity deplores.

Cleopatra, eternal icon: from Sarah Bernhardt to Liz Taylor

Shakespeare the first, followed by many others make it a theater heroine. A magnificent pre -raphaélite style portrait, shows Sarah Bernhardt, performing it around 1890. While extracts from films with Liz Taylor as well as Monica Bellucci prove that myth did not weaken in the 20th century! Jewelry, costumes and sets complete the “Cléomania” which also affects advertising, television and contemporary art.

The exhibition presents with humor a collection of soaps and other household products using the queen as a call figure. On this subject, a creation of the French artist Shourouk Rhaiem, “Cleopatra’s Kiosk»»,, In which these everyday objects are covered with rhinestones, amused.

All these versions of Cleopatra, in the end, will not have lifted the veil on the ancient queen of Egypt, but we will have learned a lot, in a distractioning way, on the inexhaustible fortune of a popular character, through works that can speak to the whole family.