Both works share the evocative, loose and fluid brush strokes generally accepted as influenced by Velázquez's exposure to Titian during his 1629–30 and 1649–51 visits to Italy.

In contrast, this woman has disheveled hair, with loose strands spilling on her neck and exposed upper back, and is dressed in relatively plain clothing.

Her skin is rendered in pearly white tones,[4] her lips are parted as if about to speak while her finger rests on the seemingly blank tablet (tabula rasa).

Art historian Simona Di Nepi, among others, has noted Velázquez's habit for employing unexceptional looking models to sit for classical subject matter and for rendering their features in a realistic, unidealised manner.

[2] A number of art historians have raised doubts as to her identification as a sibyl and instead see the woman as a personification of painting, noting the resemblance to Velázquez's Fable of Arachne.