The Banquet of Cleopatra
Title of several paintings depicting Cleopatra and Mark Antony / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Banquet of Cleopatra is the title of several paintings showing the culmination of a wager between Cleopatra and Mark Antony as to which one could provide the most expensive feast. As recounted in Pliny the Elder's Natural History Cleopatra wins the wager: after Mark Antony's feast, Cleopatra drops a rare and precious pearl from her earring into a cup of vinegar and drinks it once the pearl has dissolved.[1] The third person at the table is Lucius Munatius Plancus, at the time Antony's ally, who was to decide the winner of the wager.[2][3]
Other titles for the same subject include The Wager of Cleopatra, Cleopatra and the Pearl, and so on; these may just include the two main figures. Paintings called Cleopatra's Feast are likely to show this incident. Another type of painting just showed Cleopatra with the pearl, either removing it from her ear, or about to drop it into the cup. These were mostly 17th and 18th century, and often portraits of a wealthy lady "as" Cleopatra, following a fashion at the time for portraits posing, sometimes with the appropriate costume, as historical figures, usually from the ancient world. These are called the portrait historiƩ ("historicized portrait").