Guercino, 'The Cumaean Sibyl with a Putto', 1651

The Cumaean Sibyl with a Putto

Guercino

Room 32

About the work

Overview

The Cumaean Sibyl is one of 12 pagan sibyls, or prophetesses, said to have foretold the coming of Christ. The Cumaean Sibyl, who takes her name from Cumae near Naples, predicted that Christ would be born to a virgin mother in a stable at Bethlehem. The inscription on the stone slab here refers to the wooden cross on which Christ was crucified.

This is one of Guercino’s finest late works, imposing in composition, rich in colour and dignified in pose and gesture. The painting was commissioned in 1651 by Gioseffo Locatelli of Cesena as a companion to Guercino’s King David, now in a private collection. Before it could be sent to Locatelli, it was seen in Guercino’s studio by Prince Mattias de' Medici, who convinced the artist to sell it to him instead. Guercino painted The Samian Sibyl with a Putto, also in the National Gallery’s collection, for the original patron as a replacement.

In-depth

The Cumaean Sibyl is one of 12 pagan sibyls, or prophetesses, said to have foretold the coming of Christ. In pagan legend they each take their name from their place of origin and have a particular prophecy associated with them. The Cumaean Sibyl, named after Cumae near Naples, predicted that Christ would be born to a virgin mother in a stable at Bethlehem.

This is one of Guercino’s finest late works, imposing in composition, rich in colour and dignified in pose and gesture. The noble figure of the Sibyl, finely dressed and wearing a turban and pearl-drop earring, dominates the composition. She is seated on a stone block and rests a book on a separate stone plinth. Her face turns to meet the gaze of a winged putto who props up a stone slab and gestures towards its inscription: ‘O LIGNVM BEATVM IN QVO DEVS EXTENSVS EST, SYBILLA CVMANA’. This translates as: ‘O blessed wood on which God was stretched out; Cumaean Sibyl’, referring to the wooden cross on which Christ was crucified.

In Italian painting from the fifteenth century onwards, sibyls were commonly shown with books or scrolls (most famously in Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling), as an allusion to the Sibylline Books in which their prophecies were recorded. Here, books are included in the foreground, at the putto’s feet, and in the Sibyl’s hands. The Cumaean Sibyl is referred to several times in classical literature, including in Ovid’s Metamorphoses and Virgil’s Aeneid, and was one of the most commonly featured sibyls in Italian art. The sibyls became particularly popular subjects in the seventeenth century and Guercino, like Domenichino, painted numerous pictures of them throughout his career, especially in the late 1640s and early 1650s.

The warm tones in this painting are achieved through Guercino’s use of an orange-brown ground, exposed and visible near the lower right corner of the stone tablet. The range of delicate colours is punctuated by accents of blue in the Sibyl’s cloak and hairband, and in the cloudy sky at upper left. Through his rendering of fabric, the artist has endowed the Sibyl with a great sense of monumentality. Her green stole is tucked into her bodice and winds itself around her shoulders and right arm, to rest on the cloak lying over her lap. Her bright, peach-coloured sleeve, whose folds are wonderfully modelled, draws our attention to the centre of the painting and our eye is led to the fine details of the Sibyl’s dress, such as the embellished velvet band running across her neckline. The putto’s cloak, too, billows out dramatically behind him, further demonstrating Guercino’s skill in articulating drapery.

The painting was commissioned in 1651 by Gioseffo Locatelli of Cesena as a companion to Guercino’s King David, now in a private collection. Before the canvas could be sent to Locatelli, it was seen in Guercino’s studio by Prince Mattias de' Medici, who convinced the artist to sell it to him instead. Guercino painted The Samian Sibyl with a Putto for the original patron as a replacement. That Guercino chose to produce a new composition rather than an identical copy is a testament to his originality as a painter.

Key facts

Details

Full title: The Cumaean Sibyl with a Putto
Artist: Guercino
Artist dates: 1591 - 1666
Date made: 1651
Medium and support: oil on canvas
Dimensions: 222 × 168.5 cm
Acquisition credit: Bought, 2011
Inventory number: NG6615
Location: Room 32
Collection: Main Collection
Frame: 17th-century Italian Frame

Provenance

Commissioned from the artist by Giuseppe Locatelli, Cesena, in 1651, but sold by the artist in May of that year to Prince Mattias de’ Medici (1613–1667); acquired from an unknown source, probably between 1830 and 1840, by Sir John Forbes of Craigievar, 7th Bt. (1785–1846), for the newly-completed Fintray House, Aberdeenshire; thence by inheritance to his great-grand son, William Francis Forbes-Sempill of Craigievar, 10th Bt. and 19th Lord Sempill (1893–1965), by whom sold when Fintray House was demolished; acquired by Sir Denis Mahon shortly afterwards, in 1954; on loan from Sir Denis Mahon since 1992; acquired in 2011, NG6615.

Additional information

Text extracted from the National Gallery’s Annual Report, ‘The National Gallery: Review of the Year, April 2012 – March 2013’.

Exhibition history

2024

Guercino at Waddesdon

Waddesdon Manor (Rothschild Foundation)

20 March 2024 - 20 October 2024

Bibliography

1678

C.C. Malvasia, Felsina pittrice: Vite de' pittori bolognesi, Bologna 1678
1808

J.A. Calvi, Notizie della vita e delle opere del Cavaliere Gian Francesco Barbieri detto il Guercino da Cento, Bologna 1808
1953

G. Briganti, 'The Mahon Collection of Seicento Paintings', The Connoisseur, CXXXII, 1953, pp. 4-18
1956

Palazzo delle esposizioni, Il Seicento Europeo: Realismo, classicismo, barocco (exh. cat. Palazzo delle Esposizioni (Rome), December 1956 - January 1957), Rome 1956
1957

D. Sutton, 'Seventeenth-Century Art in Rome', The Burlington Magazine, XCIX/649, 1957, pp. 109-15
1957

Manchester City Art Gallery, Art Treasures Centenary: European Old Masters (exh. cat. Manchester City Art Gallery, 30 October - 31 December 1957), Manchester 1957
1962

E.K. Waterhouse, Italian Baroque Painting, London 1962
1968

D. Mahon, Il Guercino: Catalogo critico dei dipinti (exh. cat. Palazzo dell'Archiginnasio, 1 September - 18 November 1968), Bologna 1968
1973

C. Whitfield, England and the Seicento (exh. cat. Agnew’s (Thos. Agnew & Sons Ltd), 6 November - 7 December 1973), London 1973
1986

M. Aspinwall et al., The Age of Correggio and the Carracci: Emilian Painting of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (exh. cat. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 19 December 1986 - 16 February 1987; Pinacoteca Nazionale, 10 September - 11 November 1986; Metropolitan Museum of Art, 26 March 26 - 24 May 1987), Washington 1986
1988

L. Salerno, I dipinti del Guercino, Rome 1988
1991

D.M. Stone, Guercino: Catalogo completo dei dipinti, Florence 1991
1991

M. Helston et al., Guercino in Britain: Paintings from British Collections (exh. cat. The National Gallery, 28 June - 31 July 1991), London 1991
1991

D. Mahon, Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, Il Guercino, 1591-1666 (exh. cat. Museo civico archeologico, 6 July - 10 November 1991; Schirn Kunsthalle, 2 December 1991 - 9 February 1992; National Gallery of Art, Washington, 15 March - 17 May 1992), Bologna 1991
1997

G. Finaldi et al., Discovering the Baroque: The Denis Mahon Collection (exh. cat. The National Gallery, 26 February - 18 May 1997), London 1997
2001

C. Baker and T. Henry, The National Gallery: Complete Illustrated Catalogue, London 2001
2004

D. Mahon et al., Guercino: Poesia e sentimento nella pittura del'600 (exh. cat. Palazzo Reale (Milan), 27 September 2003 - 18 January 2004), Milan 2004
2014

National Gallery, The National Gallery: Review of the Year, April 2012 - March 2013, London 2014

About this record

If you know more about this painting or have spotted an error, please contact us. Please note that exhibition histories are listed from 2009 onwards. Bibliographies may not be complete; more comprehensive information is available in the National Gallery Library.

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You've viewed 6 of 8 works

Guercino, 'The Cumaean Sibyl with a Putto', 1651

About the work

Overview

In-depth

Key facts

Details

Provenance

Additional information

Source

Exhibition history

Bibliography

About this record

Images

More works by Guercino