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This panel is one of a set of three formerly in the Chigi Saraceni collection, Siena. The other two panels, one depicting the Vestal Tuccia and the other Portia, are in Sternberk Castle (Czech Republic) and the Musée de Chambéry, respectively. These particular kinds of panels, comprising sets of allegories of the Virtues or depictions of heroes and heroines of antiquity, were used for a type of interior decoration that flourished in Siena in the later 15th century and throughout the 16th century. As with this painting of Cleopatra, these figures were often set against extensive landscape backgrounds, as if viewed through tall windows, and were probably set into the wall of a room and separated by some sort of framing element.
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