The Eritrean Sibyl

Description

Giorgio Ghisi engraved six of the twelve prophets and sibyls from the pendentives of Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling fresco almost 60 years after its completion. This prophetess, a priestess of Apollo in ancient Greece, was included as part of the Sistine cycle because she was said to have prophesied the coming of the Redemption through Christ. (The presence of Michelangelo’s nude staffage figures elicited a later, censored state of the print with fig leaves.)

The Eritrean Sibyl

Giorgio Ghisi

c. 1570

Accession Number

135442

Medium

Engraving on ivory laid paper

Dimensions

57.2 × 43.6 cm (22 9/16 × 17 3/16 in.)

Classification

engraving

Museum

The Art Institute of Chicago

Chicago, United States

Credit Line

William McCallin McKee Memorial Endowment