The nude figure of a woman reclines on a bed, partly covered by a bright blue mantle, with a small basket of flowers at her left elbow.

The extreme pallor of her skin and the small snake moving away on the sheet signify the final moments of Cleopatra's life.

Her head has dropped back on the pillows, causing her crown to fall from her wavy golden hair.

While Cleopatra was a relatively common subject for her contemporaries, it was rare to portray this moment of the story, the queen's death.

[1] While it is believed to have been executed during the artist's time in Naples,[1] the work is first recorded at the Matthiesen Gallery in London in the 1980s.