Modern Sibyls and Sibylline Media

The dynamic image of the sibyl's flying leaves is at odds with the still life of painting, but her recalcitrant ministry offers a powerful allegory for the survival of writing as a "riddle at the painting's centre" (Garrett Stewart), a medium whose mode of operation has been subtracted by its transposition in paint. This essay traces visual lines of transmission starting with Old Master paintings, and then turning to portraits, adaptations, and impersonations of modern sibyls in the Romantic period, focusing on Benjamin West, Angelica Kauffmann, Emma Hamilton's attitudes and Friedrich Rehberg's outlines, and Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun.