The work draws inspiration from the painting by Carlo Maratta, who was commissioned by the banker Francesco Montioni, a cycle of paintings to symbolize the feminine virtues. The original painting is kept at the National Museum of Palazzo Venezia, Rome.
Cleopatra is depicted in eighteenth-century robes and refers to the story handed down by Pliny the Elder in the Naturalis Historia (IX, 118-121) where Cleopatra throws a pearl earring in a cup of wine to prove to Marcantonio to be his indifference to luxury.