Cleopatra Comes to Graphic End

--Art lovers will get their first look at the flip side of a well-known Michelangelo drawing of the suicide of Cleopatra when it goes on display Sunday at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, Director J. Carter Brown said. The newly discovered drawing, which was found in August, had not been noticed before because it was on the reverse side of a better known work that had been pasted onto a backing. Conservators decided that the well-known drawing was not being preserved properly on the backing, so it was removed. “When they did, to everyone’s great delight they were able to reveal the fact that there was this drawing on the reverse, which was also of Cleopatra, but in a very different mood,” Brown said. The well-known drawing on the front illustrates the story of Cleopatra’s suicide, in which she had an asp brought to her in a basket of figs. It shows the snake biting her. Cleopatra’s hair is carefully dressed and her expression is calm and melancholy. The newly found drawing, much less finished, shows her hair in disorder, her eyes staring at the viewer and her mouth open as if in a scream. Michelangelo did the drawings sometime before 1534. The exhibit, “Michelangelo: Draftsman/Architect,” is the largest showing of his graphic work ever mounted in this country.

--Moscow State University has bestowed honors on two Westerners. American economist John Kenneth Galbraith and British writer Graham Greene were both presented with honorary doctorates by Anatoly Logunov, rector of Moscow State University and a member of the Academy of Sciences. Galbraith, a professor at Harvard University, was honored for “his services in the development of sciences and the humanities,” the official Tass news agency said. Greene’s doctorate is a sign of “his outstanding services in the field of literature and in the strengthening of friendly contacts with the Soviet Union,” Tass said.

--A second American woman from the Northwest American Everest Expedition has made it to the top of the world’s tallest mountain, the Nepalese Ministry of Tourism said in Katmandu. Peggy Joan Luce, 30, a bicycle messenger from Seattle, and Dr. Geoffrey Tabin, 32, of Glencoe, Ill., reached the 29,029-foot summit of Mt. Everest on Sunday. Luce’s past climbs include ascents of Mt. Rainier. On Thursday, Stacy Marie Allison, 30, of Portland, Ore., became the first American woman to reach the top of Everest. A Sherpa guide accompanied her. Six other women have climbed Everest.