The Cumaean Sibyl before Tarquin the Proud

Niccolò dell' Abate

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This lively narrative scene is related to a lost fresco cycle for the Palazzo Torfanini in Bologna, which depicted episodes from the life of the last king of Rome, Tarquin the Proud. The scene represents the critical moment when King Tarquin decides to purchase the remaining three volumes of the prophetic books offered him by the Cumaean Sibyl. Six of these volumes are already burning in the foreground, cast onto the flames when the king refused to pay the high price demanded by the sibyl. Although Niccolò left for Fontainebleau in 1552, the decorative works that he carried out in Bologna had a lasting influence on artists of that city.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.

Metropolitan Museum of Art