The Death of Cleopatra

The same spring this appeared at the Paris Salon in 1874, a small breakaway group including Monet and Degas mounted their own show a few streets away, the exhibition later called the first Impressionist one. Rixens went the opposite way. He gave the Salon a large, polished, theatrical Cleopatra, the Egyptian queen sprawled dead across her bed after the asp's bite, two servants collapsing around her. Everything is smooth surface and staged light, the pale body set against dark ornament. It was exactly the grand history painting the official Salon still rewarded, and it helped make the young Toulouse painter's name. The city bought the canvas, and it has stayed in Toulouse ever since.