The Death of Cleopatra / The Birth of Freedom: Edmonia Lewis at the New World's Fair

2012/03/01 by Susanna W. Gold · 1 citation
Arts and Humanities · Social Sciences · #Ambivalence #Archaeology #Art #Art history #Centennial #Classical Antiquity Studies #Cleopatra #Exhibition #Historical Art and Culture Studies #History #Literature #Psychoanalysis #Shakespeare, Adaptation, and Literary Criticism #Spanish Civil War

paper · doi:10.1353/bio.2012.0014

openalex publication_date 2012/03/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21

Abstract

At Philadelphia's 1876 Centennial Exhibition, sculptor Edmonia Lewis's The Death of Cleopatra responded to the ambivalent Centennial culture that celebrated one-hundred years of a nation built on founding principles of unity and liberty, but that was haunted by centuries of African slavery, the recent Civil War, and the rapidly failing efforts of Reconstruction.

Cited by

• Edmonia Lewis [wikipedia]

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