Figure of a Woman

For generations the Prado's catalogue called her a Sibyl, and for at least part of that time the museum knew the name did not fit; the catalogue printed between 1872 and 1907 lists her as a woman improperly given that title. She is in profile, kneeling, her right elbow on her thigh and her chin propped on her hand, one arm bare, a greenish cloth wound round her head, an ash-coloured sleeveless tunic and a yellowish cloak across her waist. What she is watching is not there any more. This is a piece cut from Ribera's Triumph of Bacchus, dated by the museum to the mid-1630s and destroyed when the old royal palace in Madrid burned in 1734. The whole canvas is recorded in the palace inventories near the room where the king took his meals.