Sibyl Europća Repainted by Cosmo Alexander, 1761 |
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One of an original set of twelve Sibyls, arguably by George Jamesone, which was presented to King's College in 1640 by Principal William Guild. Sibyls, in their role of foretellers of the Christian Revelation, formed part of a decorative tradition in seventeenth-century Scotland.
Cosmo Alexander, a Jacobite who fled to Rome for some years after the Battle of Culloden in 1746, undertook the restoration of the series. Sibyl Europća holds a sceptre, which may be seen to align her with the figure of Europa, one of the symbolic female personifications of the Four Parts of the World, used in art to promote the authority of the Catholic Church.
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