About this artwork
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.)
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Status
- Currently Off View
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Department
- Prints and Drawings
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Artist
- Giorgio Ghisi
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Title
- The Eritrean Sibyl
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Place
- Italy (Artist's nationality:)
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Date
- 1565–1575
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Medium
- Engraving on ivory laid paper
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Dimensions
- 57.2 × 43.6 cm (22 9/16 × 17 3/16 in.)
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Credit Line
- William McCallin McKee Memorial Endowment
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Reference Number
- 1994.719
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IIIF Manifest
- https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/135442/manifest.json