Detail of Sibylle by Corot in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, July 2010

Artist: Camille Corot (French, 1796–1875)

Title: Sibylle

Date: ca. 1870

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 32 1/4 x 25 1/2 in. (81.9 x 64.8 cm)

Classification: Paintings

Credit Line: H. O. Havemeyer Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, 1929

Accession Number: 29.100.565

On View


Gallery Label:

This handsome work ranks as one of Corot's most accomplished attempts to approximate Raphael's High Renaissance style. The pose closely follows the portrait of Bindo Altoviti (National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.), believed, in Corot's day, to be Raphael's self-portrait. Yet, for all of the self-conscious "disegno"—the arch of the back mirrored in the swanlike curve of the neck—Corot arrived at this composition incrementally. X-radiographs reveal an earlier state in which the model is playing the cello: the left hand held the neck of the instrument and the right hand, slightly raised, held the bow. Corot made several adjustments to the contour of the cello and numerous efforts to position the bow before painting them over altogether, dropping the model's right hand to her lap, and inserting a rose, or pink, in her left hand.

Text from: www.metmuseum.org/Works_of_Art/collection_database/europe...