English: The subject of this painting is a rarely-depicted moment in the story of Antony and Cleopatra. In Plutarch’s Life of Mark Antony, Antony dies of a self-inflicted wound in Cleopatra’s “monument”, a fortified tomb in which the Eqyptian queen had barricaded herself. Several of Caesar Augustus’s men, seeking to capture Cleopatra alive, enter the monument just as she is about to stab herself. The soldier Proculeius prevents Cleopatra’s suicide by seizing and then admonishing her:

“For shame Cleopatra, you wrong yourself and Caesar much who would rob him of so fair an occasion for showing clemency, and would make the world believe the most gentle of commanders to be a faithless and implacable enemy.”

Although Caesar’s motive in ordering his soldiers to save Cleopatra is questionable, it suggests that the theme of this painting is the noble virtue of mercy.

Duvivier initially studied in his natïve Bruges, but by 1783 he was a student at the Paris Academie, where in 1785, at age 23, he received second prize in the annual Prix de Rome competition for his painting Death of Camilla. Cleopatra Captured by Roman Soldiers is almost identical in format and size to the earlier painting; it is likely that this painting was an assignment for one of the preliminary rounds in another Prix de Rome competition.

From the placard: Memorial Art Gallery