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| Sebastiano Conca Sibyl 1726 oil on canvas Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
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| Domenico Corvi Allegory of Painting 1764 oil on canvas Walters Art Museum, Baltimore |
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| Donato Creti The Cumaean Sibyl ca. 1730 oil on canvas Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
The Cumaean Sibyl
Because she forgot to ask for youth
when Apollo gave her as many years
as grains of dust in her hand, this sibyl
personifies old age: and yet
those withered breasts can still let down
celestial milk to one who craves
redemption: a dry tree, not a green,
the emblem of salvation.
– Ruth Fainlight (published in the Times Literary Supplement, 1977)
According to Roman mythology, the sibyl wrote prophecies on oak leaves, placing them at the mouth of her cave and refusing to replace them if they blew away. When Apollo offered to grant her one wish in exchange for her virginity, she picked up a handful of sand and asked for "as many years as grains of dust in her hand." Because she continued to reject Apollo's overtures, however, he allowed her mortal body to wither and decay until it was reduced enough to fit inside a jar.
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| Giuseppe Maria Crespi Portrait of Chancellor Florius Senesius ca. 1730-40 oil on canvas Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
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| Giuseppe Maria Crespi Woman tuning a Lute ca. 1700-1705 oil on canvas Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
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| Jacopo Amigoni Portrait of a Lady before 1752 oil on canvas private collection |
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| Gaetano Gandolfi Head of a Bishop ca. 1770 oil on canvas Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Anonymous Venetian painter Portrait of a Lady ca. 1780-90 oil on canvas Walters Art Museum, Baltimore |
from Portrait of a Lady
Among the smoke and fog of a December afternoon
You have the scene arrange itself – as it will seem to do –
With "I have saved this afternoon for you";
And four wax candles in the darkened room,
Four rings of light upon the ceiling overhead,
An atmosphere of Juliet's tomb
Prepared for all the things to be said, or left unsaid.
We have been, let us say, to hear the latest Pole
Transmit the Preludes, through his hair and finger-tips.
"So intimate, this Chopin, that I think his soul
Should be resurrected only among friends
Some two or three, who will not touch the bloom
That is rubbed and questioned in the concert room."
– And so the conversation slips
Among velleities and carefully caught regrets
Through attenuated tones of violins
Mingled with remote cornets
And begins.
– T.S. Eliot (published in Others: a Magazine of the New Verse, 1915)
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| Giuseppe Ghislandi Portrait of a Young Nobleman ca. 1700-1710 oil on canvas Walters Art Museum, Baltimore |
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| Giacomo Ceruti Servant carrying a Dog ca. 1740-50 oil on canvas Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Giacomo Ceruti Girl with Doves before 1767 oil on canvas Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut |
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| Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini Figure of Nobility holding a Statue of Athena before 1741 oil on canvas Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
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| Giovanni Battista Piazzetta Peasant Boy at a Market ca. 1715-18 oil on canvas Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
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| Pompeo Batoni Vulcanus 1750 oil on canvas private collection |