Giovanni Andrea Sirani

Private collector, Europe;

By whom sold, Vienna, Dorotheum, 13 October 2010, lot 341;

Possibly there acquired by the present collector.

Although best known as the father and teacher of Elisabetta, Barbara, and Ana Maria Sirani, Giovanni Andrea was an important Bolognese artist in his own right. He trained under Guido Reni, whose treatment of half-length female figures certainly inspired this elegant depiction of a turbaned sibyl. The present composition, known in several versions including one at the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (inv. no. 229), must have been particularly celebrated.¹

¹ See Maestri della pittura del Seicento emiliano, exhibition catalogue, F. Arcangeli and C. Gnudi (eds.) Bologna 1959, pp. 143-144. Other versions were sold at the Dorotheum, 12 June 2001, lot 294; and Christie's, London, 27 October 1989, lot 48.