The Mystery of Cleopatra: Inside the Paris Arab World Institute exhibition deconstructing myths about the queen of Ptolemaic Egypt

There are historical characters that are no longer themselves. They become archetypes and symbols for us to project upon. Cleopatra is one such character — no longer a queen, but almost a mutable surface onto which each era, each civilisation, and each seat of power has projected its fantasies, anxieties, and desires.

The Mystery of Cleopatra, a newly opened exhibition at the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris, investigates this very aspect of the Egyptian queen.

Drawing on historical sources that retrace who Cleopatra was, the exhibition examines what she has been made to represent — and how her story might now be told differently.

In the Roman imagination, she was seen as an Eastern seductress — an enemy of Rome’s rationality and moral order — who first seduced Julius Caesar, and later Marc Antony. 

The Orientalist painters of the 19th century saw in her the opportunity to cast an erotic, decadent figure. Hollywood, giving her the features of Elizabeth Taylor, turned her into the ultimate glamour icon — replete with diamonds, dramatic eyeliner, and stylised opulence.

Egyptian nationalists, on the other hand, emphasised the political side of the queen, finding in Cleopatra a heroic ancestor, a figure of political sovereignty and cultural resilience. 

In today's reconfiguration of feminist and postcolonial imaginaries, there is a need not only to unearth a stable historical truth, but also to expose the machinery of mythmaking that has shaped Cleopatra's image.

“When I heard the Institut wanted to create an exhibition on Cleopatra, I immediately felt called to it,” says curator Iman Moinzadeh.

She adds, “My mother was born in Cairo and lived there for thirty years. Egypt has always been a part of my life. And as I researched, what shocked me most wasn’t just the distortions in her image, but the violence of those distortions. I allow us to reflect more broadly on patriarchy, on colonial narratives, on the misogynistic undercurrents of historiography.”

Cleopatra's image

The exhibition opens with a foundational act of historical reclamation. Through coins, signed papyri, ritual objects, and fragments of ancient narrative, Cleopatra is restored as a savvy strategist. She orchestrated complex monetary reforms, restructured the bureaucracy, and reclaimed territories lost under her father’s rule.

“These bronze coins she minted were tools of political communication,” Iman explains. “They circulated her face, her sovereignty. They were her version of state media, carefully curated to assert control over her image and to reach every social stratum.”

Yet this Cleopatra — ruler, tactician, and reformer — was largely overwritten in dominant narratives by the voices of her Roman adversaries.

“From the start, Roman authors close to Octavian undertook a smear campaign. They dismissed her intellect, omitted her political skill, and fixated obsessively on her body, her sexuality,” says Iman.

The writers of the Augustan period — Plutarch, Dio Cassius, and Suetonius among them — played a decisive role in constructing a legacy that served Rome’s political ambitions.

Their depiction of Cleopatra as manipulative, lustful, and alien was not incidental: it functioned to discredit the defeated enemy and legitimise Rome’s civilisational superiority.

The traces of the narrative of the dangerous female survive today — in mass media, in schoolbooks, and in the aesthetic codes of contemporary advertising.

These textual distortions laid the groundwork for centuries of visual appropriation. Academic painting, particularly in the 18th and 19th centuries, codified Cleopatra as a figure of erotic spectacle.

“The most commonly depicted scene is her death,” explains Iman. “But while she is represented giving herself death — naked and beautiful — it is also an image of courage: that of preferring death instead of surrendering to the Romans.”

Strategic versus romantic alliances 

With the advent of cinema, the myth of Cleopatra expanded onto the global stage. Sarah Bernhardt, insistent on using a live snake in her performances, offered an early example of theatrical obsession. Theda Bara adorned her apartment with Egyptian motifs, claiming mystical continuity with the queen.

But it was Joseph Mankiewicz’s 1963 epic, with Elizabeth Taylor in the titular role, that fully crystallised the cinematic Cleopatra.

“Taylor is Cleopatra. Cleopatra is Taylor. The line between actor and character collapses. And that confusion — that fusion of myth and celebrity — still shapes the way we visualise her today,” says Iman.

The show includes a Galliano for Dior gown inspired by that film, alongside a video installation collaging over forty international commercials, each reiterating the same visual codes: bold kohl-lined eyes, ornate headdresses, and the smouldering look of seduction.

“She becomes a brand, a universally recognised logo,” Iman observes. “The femme fatale par excellence.”

Yet there is another narrative thread — one that runs counter to these Western constructions — a narrative held within Arabic historiography. In medieval Islamic texts, Cleopatra appears not as a temptress, but as a philosopher-queen, an architect, a builder of monuments, and a just ruler.

“They never mention her physical beauty,” Iman notes. “They speak of her as a sovereign invested in the wellbeing of her people, and she is remembered for her wisdom, not her allure.”

This alternative image found renewed relevance in early 20th-century Egypt during the rise of Pharaonism — a nationalist movement that sought to reclaim ancient heritage from colonial narratives.

“When Howard Carter discovered the tomb of Tutankhamun in 1922, Egyptians began to ask whose history this was and who had the right to represent it, and Cleopatra became part of this reclamation,” says Iman, as theatre, poetry, and music flourished around her image.

Mahmoud Mokhtar, one of Egypt’s most celebrated sculptors, envisioned a public monument in her honour but died before realising it.

Iman shares a story that captures this cultural shift: “Mounira Al-Mahdiya, the first Muslim actress to perform on stage, was cast as Cleopatra. One evening, she turned to her director and said, ‘I’d rather play Mark Antony — he’s more interesting,’ and swapped roles. In 1927!”

Fragments from Ibrahim Lama’s lost film featuring Amina Rizk, along with Ahmad Chawki’s play Cleopatra’s Passion, are presented as evidence of this Egyptian counter-narrative.

Iman shares, “Chawki was clear: Cleopatra’s alliances weren’t romantic. They were strategic. She aligned with Caesar and Mark Antony to protect her people.”

Reclaiming Cleopatra’s Egyptian identity

Today, Cleopatra’s image still circulates in Egypt — on coins, on stamps, and in monuments. But it is a distinctly Egyptian Cleopatra, no longer filtered through Greco-Roman lenses.

“She is no longer the exotic queen of foreign fantasy. She belongs again to a national, postcolonial narrative,” says Iman. 

Across the exhibition, several contemporary artworks represent the queen. In a satirical gesture, Cindy Sherman stages herself as Cleopatra — her gaze crossed, her posture slumped, her presence both majestic and monstrous.

Esmeralda Kosmatopoulos’s contribution is both surgical and conceptual. She submitted Cleopatra’s coin profile to plastic surgeons in Italy, Greece, and Egypt, asking what adjustments would be necessary to make her resemble the icons of film. The absurdity of the answers reveals the absurdity of the premise.

In another work, Second Draft, Esmeralda prints excerpts from Roman texts on delicate Japanese paper, striking out each slur and replacing it with affirmations of agency and intelligence.

The exhibition concludes with Barbara Chase-Riboud’s Cleopatra’s Chair — a massive bronze throne made up of thousands of tesserae. It is both gleaming and fragile, monumental yet abstract. The chair itself remains empty.

“She doesn’t give us Cleopatra’s likeness. She gives us the throne, and leaves it unoccupied,” Iman reflects. “After centuries of misappropriation, of projections from both the West and the Arab world, Chase-Riboud leaves space.”

That might be the most accurate representation: a figure so powerful she transcends form, a figure upon which societies can project their fantasies, their values, and ultimately, themselves.

[Cover photo: Elisabeth Taylor, dans Cleopatra, réalisé par Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1963, crédit: Everett Collection/Bridgeman Images, © 20th Century Fox Film Corporation, Everett Collection, Bridgeman Images]

Naima Morelli is an arts and culture writer with a particular interest in contemporary art from the Middle East, North Africa and the Asia-Pacific region. She is also the author of Arte Contemporanea in Indonesia, un’introduzione and The Singapore Series: a contemporary art reportage

Follow her on X: @naimamorelli