De stervende Cleopatra
Around 1520, Jan van Scorel travelled to Venice, Jerusalem and Rome, and became keeper of the papal collections in the Vatican. An antique statue there probably served as the inspiration for this painting. Queen Cleopatra, the last pharaoh of ancient Egypt, committed suicide by inducing a snake to bite her. Scorel depicts her nude and with pronounced musculature, in the throes of succumbing to the venom.