Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema’s 1885 painting The Meeting of Antony and Cleopatra, 41 BC, takes artistic liberties with the first encounter between the ultimately doomed lovers. The pair had first met in Rome when Cleopatra was the young mistress of Julius Caesar, Antony’s mentor. Their torrid romance actually began in Tarsus, after Antony was awed by Cleopatra’s intentionally provocative arrival. (Sotheby’s)