Piedmont, 17th century, Twelve Sibyls

Piedmont, 17th century

Twelve Sibyls

Oil on canvas, 35 x 31 cm (1) – with frame, 43 x 40 cm (1)

The cycle presented here comprises twelve small-format canvases, dedicated to the twelve sibyls of classical antiquity: Phrygian, Agripina, Europea, Erythraean, Libyan, Egyptian, Persian, Tiburtine, Delphic, Samian, Cumaean, and Hellespontine. Each figure is identified by an inscription in the upper corner of the canvas, following the formula "SIB:" followed by their name, a feature that makes the cycle immediately legible even centuries later. The sibyls are depicted half-length, alternating frontal, profile, and three-quarter poses, in a compositional variety that lends dynamism to the series while maintaining an underlying stylistic coherence. All the figures wear sumptuous robes in bright colors—blue, ochre, brick red, green—embellished with gold embroidery, pearls, jewels, and elaborate headdresses featuring turbans, tiaras, and veils, reflecting a taste for the exotic and sumptuous typical of 17th-century fantasy portraiture.

From an art-historical perspective, the compositional layout and facial rendering of these canvases hark back to late Mannerist models widespread in the Piedmont area between the late 16th and early 17th centuries, similar to the manner of Giovanni Angelo Dolce, active between Turin and southern Piedmont, and to Antonino Parentani, a painter documented in the first half of the century at the Certosa di Pesio, where he created a cycle of Stories from the Life of the Virgin accompanied, not coincidentally, by a procession of sibyls. This iconographic precedent is particularly significant, as it demonstrates how the subject of sibyls was a recurring theme in Piedmontese religious and noble patronage of the period. The public collections of Cuneo also conserve a similar cycle of canvases featuring busts of sibyls, confirming the diffusion and popularity of this iconography throughout the region, often replicated by local workshops that drew on a shared figurative repertoire of cartoons and printed models circulating among painters.

In Greco-Roman tradition, sibyls were semi-divine female figures endowed with the gift of prophecy, directly inspired by the gods to pronounce oracles on the destiny of men and nations. Originating from diverse parts of the ancient world—the oldest is said to have lived in Eritrea in the 8th century BC—the sibyls spread from the East through Greece to Rome, where their famous oracular books were jealously guarded and consulted by the Senate in times of political and religious crisis. Their number, varying according to sources between ten, twelve, and fourteen, stabilized in the medieval and Renaissance tradition around the twelve represented here. It was the Christian Church, beginning in the early centuries and then with renewed vigor during the Renaissance, that revived these pagan figures, reinterpreting them as prophetesses who, like the Old Testament prophets, would foretell the coming of Christ and redemption. This parallelism between Hebrew prophets and pagan sibyls, also codified by Michelangelo in the vault of the Sistine Chapel, guaranteed their iconographic survival well beyond the classical era, making them a privileged subject of religious and secular decorative cycles until the seventeenth century.

For Italy only: with Ars Antiqua it is possible to pay in installments up to a maximum of €7.500 at ZERO INTEREST, for a total of 15 INSTALLMENTS

E.g. Total €4.500 = Monthly installment €300 for 15 months.

E.g. Total €3.600 = Monthly installment €720 for 5 months.

For amounts exceeding €7.500 or for a longer period of time (over 15 installments), we can provide a personalized payment.

Contact us directly to get the best quote.

LIVE

– SUNDAY 17.00pm – 21.00pm Dig.terr. 126 – Sky 824

– Streaming on our website www.arsantiquasrl.com and on our social networks Facebook and Youtube

All the works proposed by Ars Antiqua are sold accompanied by a certificate of authenticity in accordance with the law and an accurate information sheet.

It is possible to see the works directly at the showroom gallery in Milan, in via Pisacane 55 and 57.

We personally organize transport and deliveries of the works, both for Italy and abroad.