Field exhibit puts a face on Cleopatra myth
To the victor go the spoils -- and also the positive public-relations spin. But Cleopatra, a victim of thousands of years of hyperbole, hype and Hollywood distortion, is finally getting an image makeover. "Cleopatra of Egypt: From History to Myth," an exhibit coming to the Field Museum, attempts to examine the legends surrounding the queen and shed light on the real woman behind the rumors, innuendoes and flashy biopics.
The exhibition, which has been seen in Rome and London and opens at the Field on Oct. 20, is no small undertaking. Field Museum senior coordinator of temporary exhibitions David Foster notes that one would have to travel the globe to see the hundreds of items on display, which come from prestigious collections in Alexandria, Cairo, the Vatican, St. Petersburg and New York, among other places.
"The content of the exhibition is irreplaceable antiquities . . . from major collections," Foster says. "In the case of the Egyptian museums, this is their cultural patrimony, so it's very special to be able to see this material in Chicago," the show's only North American stop.
Yet the goal of the show is not just to collect as much Cleo loot as possible, but to sort through the distortions that have beset her legacy. Through the years, she has been seen as everything from a skilled political leader to a brazen seductress; if you've only seen movies about her, you probably think she's just an attractive but opportunistic manipulator. To help educate museumgoers about Cleopatra's real deeds and achievements and examine the mythmaking and half-truths that have surrounded her life, the Field has added new elements to the show -- aspects that weren't part of its stops in Rome and London.
Context is everything
"The way the exhibition was presented in Rome and Britain [was] art for art's sake. They didn't really add a lot . . . about her life," Foster says. While keeping the main elements of the show, he explains, "we've enveloped it in an interpretative context."
The British Museum, for example, housed all the exhibit's objects in one large room, but the Field version of the show will consist of eight rooms. The first room is devoted to the Ptolemaic Dynasty (332-30 B.C.), which ended with Cleopatra and Mark Antony's defeat at Actium.
"The exhibition really begins 300 years before her birth with Alexander the Great," Foster says. "She has a place in the chronology, but it begins long before her . . . the first room you enter, in fact, is all about her ancestors, so you essentially get her genealogy."
The religious and cultural aspects of Egypt's historic capital Alexandria, where Cleopatra was born, and Egyptian and Greek representations of Cleopatra and her court, can be seen in other rooms. The oft-sensationalized love affairs of Cleopatra with Roman leaders Julius Caesar and Mark Antony also receive their due, as do her influence on the art and culture of the Rome of her day.
The examination of the role that Hollywood has played in shaping the queen's image is perhaps the Field's biggest contribution. The museum will display a dress worn by Elizabeth Taylor in the 1963 production of "Cleopatra," as well as photographs and film clips of famous actresses who've played the queen, including Tallulah Bankhead, Claudette Colbert, Vivien Leigh, Sophia Loren and Katharine Hepburn.
Checking the details
The film footage doesn't end with Hollywood, however -- in six rooms of the exhibit, video montages projected on the walls will attempt to "put you in the picture," Foster says. The montages will display many different images of Cleopatra, as well as various historic locations relevant to her history. The goal is to deliver the information on multiple levels.
"A person could not read a single label, be immersed in the video and almost by osmosis get the message," Foster says.
But to collect and check all the information it presents to visitors, the Field Museum couldn't just send its staff to a library. Egyptologist Robert Ritner, who works at Chicago's Oriental Institute, has acted as the first filter for the content of all the displays win the show.
Ritner and the Oriental Institute have collaborated with the Field Museum since February 2000, with Ritner and several others helping revise 300 labels from the British exhibition for a Chicago audience, which should provide visitors with a broad historical perspective about the queen. Even signs in the museum gift shop were checked for accuracy.
"I was called upon to review hieroglyphic texts to be used as decoration in the museum shop," writes Ritner in a recent Oriental Institute newsletter. "Unfortunately, one of the selected pieces proved to be the Egyptian titles of her enemy [Roman politician] Octavian, adopted after his conquest of Egypt. A selection of Cleopatra's own titles was quickly substituted. She has suffered quite enough from that man; he will have to get his own gift shop."
Bad-girl image
Ritner recognizes that Cleopatra's savvy as a leader, a result of upbringing, has often gone unrecognized.
"She had seen sisters attempt to dethrone her father . . . she was never a babe in the woods politically," Ritner says. "She had been expelled from her kingdom by the plotting of her younger brother's advisers."
Ritner says Cleopatra is often seen as "sort of latter-day Helen of Troy who draws strong men to their death."
"The classic Roman understanding of Cleopatra was that she took the virile warrior [Mark] Antony and converted him into a helpless lapdog," Ritner says.
The works of 14th Century Italian writer Boccaccio, as well as Dante's "Inferno" (where Cleopatra is condemned to hell) have perpetuated the image of Cleopatra as an evil, promiscuous woman. But that doesn't stand up to close examination, Ritner says. Her only crime may have been possessing a lousy family background.
"She was the last member of a particularly fascinating dynasty that was looked upon by the Romans as scandalous," Ritner says. "The same Romans who themselves produced [many infamous] scandals thought of the Ptolemys as far, far worse."
Putting it all together
Showing all of Cleopatra's fascinating qualities -- her political tact, her command of nine languages and, of course, her legendary beauty -- is not the only challenge the Field Museum is tackling.
The process of shipping all of the exhibit's artifacts to Chicago is a complicated, difficult process. For example, Foster says that Italian institutions often have a strict limits -- one year at the most -- on objects they loan out.
"It's immensely complicated and it's not over," says Foster of working out the exhibit's final details. "There are a lot of planning and logistical issues that impact us."
Another challenge has been setting up an impressive series of events and lectures, at the Field and the Oriental Institute, to complement the exhibition. Lectures, classes and a free documentary film series are part of the campaign to educate the public about the legendary queen.
"We always add [programs like these] so that we provide some meaningful frame of reference for our visitors," says Foster.
