130 10b ANGEL I CA KAUFFMAN (CHUR 1741 –1807 ROME) Portrait of a Woman as a Sibyl c. 1781/82 Oil on canvas 91 × 72.5 cm Provenance: Purchased 1782; Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Gal.-Nr. 2181 Literature: Dassdorf 1782, p. 466; cat. Dresden 1806, Äussere Galerie, p. 118, no. 310, as “Eine Sibylle Comea”; cat. Dresden 1887, p. 679, no. 2181, with incorrect identification of a signature. The Portrait of a Woman as a Sibyl (possibly a pendant to Portrait of aWoman as a Vestal Virgin) also accommodates the demand for classicising ideal portraits. Inspired by depictions of sibyls by artists like Guercino and Anton Raphael Mengs, these mythical prophetesses – receivers and conveyers of divine knowledge – find an echo in Kauffman’s oeuvre. With the Cumaean Sibyl, Kauffman presents the viewer with the best-known of the ten seers. According to tradition, she was in possession of nine books of prophecies, which she offered for sale to the tyrannical Roman King Lucius Tarquinius Superbus. When he rejected her offer, she burned three of the texts, offering him the surviving six. Rejected again, she consigned three further volumes to the fire. Only now did Tarquinius relent, acquiring the last three volumes at the full price. Henceforth, they were venerated in Rome as relics of the utmost sanctity. Kauffman presents the young sibyl seated in semi- profile from the knees upward. A blue cloak has been thrown over her pale robe, girded with a piece of green cloth with golden threads. Her pinned-up hair, held in place with a braid, is partially covered by a green headscarf that has been folded to forma turban. Her right hand touches her cheek in a melancholic gesture, while her pensive gaze is directed forward beyond the picture space, and seems to graze the viewer gently. She rests her right arm on a parapet, upon which she has unrolled a scroll – her attribute, held in her left hand. Her identity is revealed by the clearly legible word “Sybilla” – joined by a few Greek letters that do not form a word. It remains uncertain, however, precisely which moment of the legend Kauffman meant to illustrate here. It seems almost certain, though, that this history painting conceals a portrait of an as yet unidentified lady. The third painting by Kauffman in Dresden, the Portrait of a Woman as a Vestal Virgin (fig. 3, p. 81), has even been identified as a self- portrait of the artist. | ROLAND ENKE
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTMyNjA1