Denarius (Coin) Portraying Mark Antony and Queen Cleopatra VII (37-33 BCE, issued by Mark Antony): Artwork and History

Denarius (Coin) Portraying Mark Antony and Queen Cleopatra VII (37-33 BCE, issued by Mark Antony) is in the Art Institute of Chicago collection. The museum lists its creator attribution as Roman.

The work and its context

The Art Institute of Chicago describes the work:

The front (obverse) of this coin portrays the head of Mark Antony, facing to the right. On the back (reverse), a bust of Cleopatra is portrayed, facing to the right. Through Cleopatra, Egypt became involved in the chaotic political struggles of the Roman civil war, in which Julius Caesar, Mark Antony, and Octavian sought to control Egypt’s wealth of grain and gold. Eventually this led to the end of Egypt’s existence as a sovereign nation as well as the destruction of the Ptolemaic dynasty. This coin was struckafter Antony and Cleopatra had married and joined forces to fight Octavian. A year later, in 31 BCE. Octavian would defeat the pair at the Battle of Actium, and the ruling dynasty begun by Ptolemy would end with Cleopatra’s death in 30 BCE.

Object facts

• Title: Denarius (Coin) Portraying Mark Antony and Queen Cleopatra VII
• Date: 37-33 BCE, issued by Mark Antony
• Artist attribution: Roman
• Place of origin: Ancient Greece
• Medium: Silver
• Dimensions: Diam.: 1.9 cm (3/4 in.)
• Type: Coin
• Department: Arts of Greece, Rome, and Byzantium
• Reference number: 1922.4855

Collection credit

Gift of Martin A. Ryerson

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The description above is credited to the Art Institute of Chicago and reused under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0; HTML formatting has been converted to plain text. Other catalogue metadata and the public-domain image are provided under CC0 1.0.