Artist: Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475 Caprese – 1564 Roma)
Date: 1535
Dimensions: 232 x 182 mm
Medium: Black chalk on paper
Location: Casa Buonarroti Museum

This drawing belongs to the group of Michelangelo’s works which purpose is to be gifted. It was to be gifted to Tommaso Cavalieri a young Roman whom Michelangelo met in 1532, Michelangelo was immediately taken by Tommaso’s beauty and their meeting marked the beginning of a lifelong friendship. Michelangelo gifted Tommaso a series of drawings on classical-mythological themes, Cleopatra being one of them. In this painting we can see Cleopatra’s hair turning into a serpent, also we can see her head twist across her body, Michelangelo purposefully used heavier pressure when articulating Cleopatra’s face and headdress to produce darker and more defined markings, and lighter pressure when he sketched out her shoulders and breast, as well as when he drew her serpent hair wrapping around her body. Fun fact, there is a presence of another picture of Cleopatra on the verso part of the painting very similar to this Cleopatra painting but its unfinished and Cleopatra seems to be in anguish.