Sibyls

This silver niello diptych represents two female figures: Sibyls, prophetesses believed in the Middle Ages to be capable of announcing the arrival of a messiah.

It is composed of two niello-inlaid silver curved plaques, inserted into a gilded copper frame, with a diamond grid adorning its outer side. It has a small clasp to close it when carrying it. The inner sides represent female figures placed under arches, in front of a landscape.

The female figures are sibyls. On the left pane, the Sibylla Lubica or Libyan Sibylla holds a lit candle, symbolising the light that the birth of the Saviour brings to the world. On the right-hand side, the Sibylla Europa or the European Sibyl carries a gladiator sword, alluding to the massacre of the Innocents and, by extension, the flight into Egypt. Born in Antiquity, the female prophets that the sibyls were survived in the Middle Ages, where the Pagan world considered them to be the sign of a saviour. At the end of the 15th century, the Sibyls attracted the interest of Parisian printers who decorated their Books of Hours with them.

Narrow analogies can be seen between the sibyls of the niello-inlaid diptych and those of certain prints drawn by the master of the Très Petites Heures d'Anne de Bretagne, now identified with Jean d'Ypres (active around 1490 – died before 1508) and printed for the bookseller Simon Vostre, in particular the series of great sibyls (around 1502-1503).

This diptych featuring sibyls, made in Paris around 1500-1510, is one of the earliest portable objects from a French context in which the sibyls are depicted. Its typology makes it exceptional in the museum, and it expands the collection of small objects of personal devotion from the late Middle Ages.

It was purchased in 2024 and comes from a private collection.