Footnotes

Provenance
With Thos. Agnew & Sons Ltd., London, acquired from the artist 8 April 1884 and sold to A. Shuttleworth on 26 May 1884 for £840.
Private collection, Canada.

Exhibited
London, Royal Academy, 1885, no. 149 (lent by A. Shuttleworth).

Literature
Western Daily Press, 11 May 1885, p. 3.
The Era, 30 May 1885, p. 16.
Art Journal, 1885, p. 257.
Academy Notes, 1885, p. 7.
Austin Chester, The Art of Edwin Long, R.A., Windsor Magazine, February 1908, p. 350.
Mark Bills, Edwin Longsden Long RA, London, 1998, no. 205, p. 144.

This painting depicts Iras from Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra, one of the two female servants of Cleopatra. Interestingly, when Agnews bought the work from the artist, they initially listed the painting as Charmian -the other of Cleopatra's servants- and crossed it out, replacing it with the correct Iras. She is carrying a basket of figs for her mistress, which contains the 'pretty worm of Nilus ... that kills and pains not.' Long has taken some license with Shakespeare, for although the snake that Cleopatra uses for her suicide is transported in a basket of figs, it is not Iras who carries it.

The composition harks back to Long's Diploma painting for the Royal Academy Nouzhatoul-âouadat ('Delight of the Home', 1881, Royal Academy) and he appears to use the same model. The frame is original and chosen by Long, with its Egyptian decorations. The work was exhibited at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition of 1885, lent by its new owner, A. Shuttleworth.

Edwin Long began his career as a portrait painter and a painter of Spanish genre scenes before making his breakthrough as a painter of the ancient world in 1875 with the Babylonian Marriage Market (1875, Royal Holloway College). He quickly joined the ranks of the Royal Academy and his scenes, particularly of Ancient Egypt, were celebrated and achieved record prices.

We are grateful to Mark Bills for compiling this catalogue entry.