Lot 87: * GIAN DOMENICO CERRINI PERUGIA 1609 - 1681 ROME

oil on canvas

40 by 53in.; 101.6 by 134.6cm

Anonymous sale, New York, Sotheby's, December 2, 1976, lot 15;
There purchased by the present collector.

The subject of the present painting is taken from Ovid's Metamorphoses (14:130-153). The god Apollo had fallen in love with the young and beautiful Sibyl of Cumae. She refused his advances but eventually the god tricked her into wishing that her, "...years might be as many as there were sand-grains in that mound...". The Sibyl forgot, however, to mention perpetual youth along with her wish and she lived for hundreds of years as a wizened crone.