The Cumaean Sibyl with a Putto

This canvas never reached the man who ordered it. Giuseppe Locatelli of Cesena commissioned it in 1651 as the companion to Guercino's King David, but before it could be sent, Prince Mattias de' Medici, a brother of the grand duke of Tuscany, saw it in the studio and persuaded the painter to sell it to him. Locatelli got a different sibyl, who now hangs in this room too. The Cumaean Sibyl was named after Cumae, near Naples, and was said to have foretold Christ's birth in a stable at Bethlehem. The Latin on the slab the putto props up speaks of the blessed wood on which God was stretched out, the cross. Much of the warmth comes from an orange-brown ground laid under the paint, with blue in her cloak, her headband and the sky. The art historian Denis Mahon bought the picture in 1954, and the Gallery acquired it in 2011.