This panel depicts an episode from the story of Anthony and Cleopatra, which was especially popular in the 17th and 18th centuries. As told by the 2nd-century Greek biographer Plutarch, Cleopatra sailed up the Cydnus River in a barge with a gilded stern and silver oars to meet Anthony. He invited her to supper, but she asked that he join her instead. He complied with her request and was dazzled.

The design of the central panel of this tapestry, one of a set of six in the collection of the IMA, is attributed to Karel van Mander II. The son of a Flemish artist-scholar who maintained an art academy in Haarlem, Karel II became a painter and then the official designer for the Spierincx tapestry workshops in Delft. Van Mander probably sketched the cartoons, or preparatory drawings, for these tapestries in 1620, but they were not woven until after his death. Their elaborate, proscenium-like borders, which create the illusion of a stage set, show the influence of the Baroque painter and tapestry designer Peter Paul Rubens, suggesting they were perhaps designed in 1630. This influence, together with the central design by Van Mander, indicates that the set must have been woven between 1635 and 1650. The tapestries were probably commissioned by an English patron, Charles Stuart, sixth duke of Lenox and third duke of Richmond, who likely displayed them in a banquet hall.

[T]he last and crowning mischief that could befall him came in the love of Cleopatra.
-Plutarch, from "Anthony," Lives of the Noble Romans, about 100 CE