Girl with a pearl ... in her drink

Pormenor do quadro de Giovanni Battista Tiepolo O banquete de Cleopatra (1744)

(...) The following day, Cleopatra presented Antony with a meal that was nothing out of the ordinary. "Antony ridiculed her," Jaynie Anderson writes, "but she ordered the second course and reassured him that her meal alone would consume the 10 million sesterces . . . She ordered dessert and her servants placed a single dish before her containing vinegar. She detached one pearl from her ear and placed it in the dish, dissolving it into a slush which she then drank . . ." The subject is from the 'Natural History' of Pliny and shows Cleopatra, the Queen of Egypt, about to dissolve one of her famous pearls in a cup of wine, thus expressing her contempt for wealth to Mark Anthony, who recoils in surprise.