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In 1940, Cornell took a Victorian oak box (below) and filled it with bottles, each containing different ingredients, fancifully classified in French. The title refers to Cléo de Mérode, famous ballerina of the 1890s, and to Egypt's Cleopatra. The work seems both cosmetic and funerary, alluding to feminine beauty aids as well as to items Egyptians put in their tombs for use in the afterlife. The bottle of pearls in the right foreground is labeled: "meteorology/Cleopatra's hailstorm." The other two boxes

L'Égypte de Mlle. Cleo de Merode: Cours Élémentaire d'Histoire Naturelle
Joseph Cornell 1940
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