Augustus and the Sibyl of Tibur

By 1930, when this panel was painted, the scene on it was already almost 500 years old. It is a careful copy by Gertrud Bock-Schnirlin of a picture Konrad Witz made around 1435 for the Heilsspiegel altarpiece in Basel. The subject is a medieval legend. The Tiburtine Sibyl, a prophetess, stands beside the Roman emperor Augustus and points upward, where a vision of the Virgin and Child has opened in the sky. As the story went, Augustus, whom the Senate wished to worship as a god, was shown instead the greater king still to come, and refused the honour. Witz's altarpiece was later taken apart and its panels dispersed. Kunstmuseum Basel keeps most of what survives, though the original of this very scene now hangs in Dijon, in eastern France.