Design for a Sword or Dagger Handle with the Suicide of Cleopatra

Design for a Sword or Dagger Handle with the Suicide of Cleopatra

Theodor de Bry

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Handle design divided horizontally into two sections, each with a female figure in an oval at center. In the oval at top, Cleopatra holds a snake in her left hand, while the oval below shows a female figure leaning on a broken column and holding the top section of the column. On a grotesque blackwork background.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Design for a Sword or Dagger Handle with the Suicide of CleopatraDesign for a Sword or Dagger Handle with the Suicide of CleopatraDesign for a Sword or Dagger Handle with the Suicide of CleopatraDesign for a Sword or Dagger Handle with the Suicide of CleopatraDesign for a Sword or Dagger Handle with the Suicide of Cleopatra

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.