Italian, Venetian, 'Augustus and the Sibyl', about 1500

An elderly bearded man kneels in a landscape, gazing up at the Virgin Mary and Christ Child who float in the sky. Behind him a rather astonished-looking young woman throws up her hands. This is the Emperor Augustus' encounter with the sibyl, a pagan prophetess.

According to medieval legend, on the day of Christ’s birth the Roman Emperor asked the sibyl if anyone would ever be born who would be more powerful than he was. She showed him a vision of the Virgin and Child hovering in the sky above Rome, here shown as a Renaissance city. According to one version of the story, as a result of this experience Augustus set up an altar dedicated to the firstborn of God, which later became the nucleus of the church of the Ara Coeli in Rome.

This small panel was possibly once part of a piece of furniture. It is painted in oil on poplar and has been ascribed to a number of different artists, including Cima da Conegliano, Vittore Carpaccio, Giovanni Bellini and Andrea Busati. Its condition makes attribution difficult however. The landscape background, with its bridge of three arches flanked by towers and the grey hill behind, is close to that in The Entombment by Andrea Busati. Both are taken from a Resurrection scene by Bellini (now in the Staatliche Museen, Berlin).