Apollo and the Cumaean Sybil

Artist Salvator Rosa (Italian, 1615 - 1673)

Dateca. 1661

MediumEtching with drypoint

DimensionsPlate: 13 1/2 x 8 9/16 inches (34.29 x 21.75 cm)

Credit LineGift of Mr. and Mrs. Robert L. Bloch

Object number81-25/1

On View

Not on view

Collections

Prints

Terms

Exhibition History

Mythological Subjects, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, October 9, 2007–April 13, 2008; June 12–December 15, 2013, no cat.

Gallery Label

Apollo, the son of Zeus, became enamored of the Cumaean Sibyl, one of the ten cave-dwelling oracles of the ancient world. Apollo agreed to give her anything she wished, so she asked him for as many years of life as the grains of sand she held in her hand. Long life was granted to her, but unfortunately without the gift of eternal youth. The Cumaean Sibyl was assumed to be 700 years old when she guided Aeneas on his journey in the underworld. The celebrated musician Apollo is shown accompanied by his lyre.

Provenance

Robert L. (b. 1952) and Lisa Ann (née Greenberg, b. 1952) Bloch, Mission, KS, by July 7, 1981;

Their gift to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1981.

Published References

Adam Bartsch, Le peintre-graveur (Vienna: Chez Pierre Mechetti, ci-devant Charles, 1819), no. 17, p. 20:274.

Mario Rotili Salvator Rosa incisore (Naples: Societa' Editrice Napoletana, 1974), no. 93.

Walter L. Strauss, ed., The Illustrated Bartsch [TIB], vol. 45, Italian masters of the seventeenth century (New York : Abaris Books, 1978), no. 4512.102 S3.

Richard W. Wallace, The Etchings of Salvator Rosa (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979), no.102.

Olimpia Theodoli, Salvator Rosa 1615–1673. Acqueforti (1992), no. 102.

George L. McKenna, The Collections of The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: Prints 1460–1995 (Kansas City, MO: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in association with The University of Washington Press, 1996), 307, as Apollo and the Cumaean Sibyl.

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