Lot Details
Lot 84
After Giovanni Battista Barbieri, called Guercino
The Samian Sibyl
Inscribed SALVE CASTA/SYON PERMUL/TAQUE PASSA/PUELLA./SYBILLA SAMIA ("Hail, Zion, chaste maiden who has suffered much/The Samian Sibyl") in the book
Oil on canvas
46 1/4 x 37 1/4 inches (117.5 x 94.5 cm)
The original version of this composition, painted by Guercino in 1651, is now in a private collection. There is also a studio copy in the collection of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.
The Sibyls were priestesses of Classical Antiquity believed to be gifted with the power of prophecy. Their number is usually given as ten, and their names are derived from the places or countries where they lived. A collection of oracular utterances written in Greek hexameters, known as the Sibylline Books, purportedly purchased from the Cumaean Sibyl, was kept in a vault below the Temple of Capitolline Jupiter in ancient Rome. When the temple was burned during the Roman Civil Wars in 83 BC the books were destroyed, later to be replaced with similar writings brought from elsewhere in the Empire. Two centuries after the destruction of the original books, another collection of Sibylline writings was assembled, which supposedly foretold the coming of Christ. For this reason, the Sibyls of Antiquity became a common subject in Christian iconography during the Renaissance and Baroque periods.
C
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