L'Ariane Couchée dite Cléopatre par Van Clève, Versailles,

1923–24

Atget’s photograph captures the strangeness of encountering a sleeping figure among the sculptures of Versailles (Water, with her urn and reed crown, stands in the distance). The figure was copied for Louis XIV in 1684–85 from an ancient marble sculpture in the papal collections; its title, Cleopatra, was derived from the serpent-shaped ornament on the woman’s arm, thought to allude to the pharaoh’s suicide by asp. Later, the subject would be recognized as sleeping Ariadne, abandoned by Theseus on the island of Naxos, rather than the dying Egyptian ruler. The Surrealist Giorgio de Chirico was later captivated by the same sculpture and placed it in deserted town squares in some of his haunting paintings inspired by Versailles.