The Sibyl Agrippina is a circa 1630s oil painting of a Black woman in the guise of the Sibyl Agrippina (also known as Sibyl AEgyptia). The painting is one of a series of Sybils by Jan van den Hoecke, only recently being re-attributed after being known as an early portrait of an African woman by Abraham Janssens. It is held in the Museum Kunstpalast in Düsseldorf.[1]

The Sibyl Agrippina
Sibyl Agrippina
ArtistJan van den Hoecke Edit this on Wikidata
Yearc. 1630s
Dimensions1,065 mm (41.9 in) × 800 mm (31 in)

The motif of a Black woman as "Egyptian" Sybil follows the style of various engravings of sybils in Western religious art. The Sybil is shown here with a whip and a crown of thorns, both attributes of Christ's Flagellation. It was given the Jan van den Hoeke attribution in the 2008 exhibition Black is beautiful: Rubens tot Dumas by prof. Elizabeth McGrath. The inscription reads Siccabitur ut folium (he will be shrivelled like a leaf).[2]

References

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  1. ^ Painting in blogpost by Esther Schreuder, curator of Black is Beautiful
  2. ^ Latin verses regarding the "Sybilla Agrippa" in "As David and the sibyls say", sketch of the sibyls and the sibylline oracles by Mariana Monteiro, Alfred Canon White, 1905
  • Black is beautiful: Rubens tot Dumas, catalog nr. 22, exhibition & catalog in Nieuwe Kerk Amsterdam, 2008
  • "Jacob Jordaens and Moses's Ethiopian Wife", by Elizabeth McGrath, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 70, 2007, pp 247-85
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http://www.duesseldorf.de/dkult/DE-MUS-038015/142769