My profile pic - Cleopatra testing poison

It's a cropped section. The full picture is below. It's oil on canvas by Alexandre Cabanel, painted in 1887 and can be considered as a work of the Orientalists.

It's art I've loved for years. I first saw a tiny version of this pic in a book about Cleopatra. It caught my attention because I was very much interested in fashion. Not in the "vogue" sense of the word, more from a historical and sexual point of view. How far back was it accepted for women to wear revealing clothes which accentuate their femininity... In any case it intrigued me. I think it's a combination of things that make this image so fascinating.

First Cleopatra is young... very young. She was 18 when she ascended the throne and 21 when she died. This picture shows what a hard brutal word she was in charge of for those few years. Both her and her servant are looking with cold interest.

She has her breasts exposed, showing her beauty and feminine power - which is quick brutal here. Also the leopard at her feet - a wild animal tamed - draws me in. Does it represent her spirit? She looks and plays tame but when it comes down to it she is lethal?

I really should go see it one day. It hangs in the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp. Lucky Belgians. There is another Cleopatra painting which intrigues me. I'll try and find that one too...