(bright music)
- [Beth] We're in the beautiful galleries
at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.
And we're looking at an interesting sculpture
of Cleopatra by an American artist
conceived before the Civil War.
The first marble version is created during Civil War.
And the version that we are looking at
is from 1865 at the conclusion of the Civil War.
So it's really interesting to think
about this sculpture in that context.
- [Tyler] It's by William Wetmore Story,
whose first conception of this work
was made in Europe in 1858 in clay.
Storey first exhibits it in 1862 in London
at the Great Exposition at a time
when it was really important to the union
that England not support
or formally recognized the Confederacy.
The other versions after that first one,
which were all made '65 or later,
so at the end of the war or afterward.
Cleopatra was the last active ruler of Ptolemaic Egypt.
She was a descendant of Ptolemy I Soter,
who was a Macedonian Greek general,
and we don't know who her mother was.
And the reason that's relevant to us
is there's no clear consensus
on whether or not her mother was African
or whether Cleopatra had any African ancestry
- [Beth] For decades, even in fact, til very recently,
the question of Cleopatra's skin color
has been something that both historians
and the public have been interested in.
- [Tyler] But if we think of her as being Greek,
it's possible to understand her
as having been culturally constructed as white.
- [Beth] On the other hand, Egypt is in Africa.
- [Tyler] So is she perhaps, for Storey,
a European, read white, ruler of Africans?
What could have been understood in the context
of the late 1850s as a questioning
of the potential of black men and women
for self sufficiency?
There is a major debate across 19th century America
about whether men and women
who are not culturally constructed as being white
have the capacity to function
and contribute to a Republican system,
such as that in the United States.
One way of thinking about this story
is that in presenting a European ruler of Egyptians,
maybe he's engaging that debate with ambiguity.
- [Beth] It's a tour de force of sculpture,
the carving of the drapery,
the way that these lovely folds
that remind us of classical drapery
hang over her belt,
the way that the drapery makes these lovely
complicated folds over her right shoulder,
and then this Egyptian headdress.
And we're reminded of how she commits suicide
by the bite of a snake by the appearance
of a snake along the hem of her garment.
- [Tyler] The other thing that's going on in 1858,
of course, is it's clear to everyone
in American polity and American culture
that the Civil War is inevitable.
American artists have been engaging with this idea
of the inevitability of schism
for a decade at this point.
- [Beth] So this question of what will happen
when the millions of people
who are enslaved become free.
- [Tyler] And then in that context,
we could consider story is asking,
are black men and women prepared to be freed men?
If suddenly there are millions of freed men
in the United States, who will lead them?
What capacity do they have to lead themselves?
- [Beth] And I think it's really important to see
this against a racist backdrop
that is putting forward ideas about African Americans
being not human in the same way that white people are.
And it's interesting to me
that these questions are being played out
in American sculpture often with white bodies
in white marble.
We could think, for example,
of higher empowers Greek slave.
- [Tyler] It won't be until very late '62 or 1863
that you have major sculptures
of recognizably black figures in American art.
(upbeat music)