Isabella Wolff
Sir Thomas Lawrence (English, 1769-1830)
1803–15
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- 128.2 × 102.4 cm (50 1/2 × 40 5/16 in.); Framed: 156.2 × 130.5 cm (61 1/2 × 51 3/8 in.)
- Culture
- England
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Painting and Sculpture of Europe
- Credit line
- Mr. and Mrs. W. W. Kimball Collection
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
Produced over the course of 12 years, this portrait depicts Isabella Wolff, one of Sir Thomas Lawrence’s most intimate friends, contemplating a printed image of the Delphic Sibyl from Michelangelo’s famous Sistine Chapel ceiling. Wolff’s serpentine pose cleverly echoes another Sibyl from that same work. The Sibyls were priestesses of Classical legend who made enigmatic judgments and prophecies. They were often pictured according to Western fantasies of the Near East, hence Wolff’s elaborate turban here. Lawrence was famed for his ability to evoke the surface effects and textures of clothing; that talent is on full display in Wolff’s shimmering satin gown.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
