PASQUALE ROMANELLI | CLEOPATRA

Sotheby's London, 2 June 2010, lot 72

The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne,

Burned on the water; the poop was beaten gold,

Purple the sails, and so perfumed, that

The winds were love-sick with them, the oars were silver,

Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made

The water which they beat to follow faster,

As amorous of their strokes. For her own person,

It beggared all description; she did lie

In her pavilion, cloth-of-gold of tissue,

O'er picturing that Venus where we see

The fancy outwork nature; on each side her

Stood pretty-dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids,

With divers coloured fans, whose wind did seem

To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool,

And what they undid did.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616), Antony and Cleopatra, Act II, Scene II