"Sappho" fresco (Pompeii)

1st-century Pompeiian fresco October 2025 "Sappho" fresco Portrait d'une jeune femme, dite Sappho.jpg Roman portrait showing the head and shoulders of a woman: she wears fine clothing including a golden hairnet and earrings, holds a writing tablet in her left hand, and a stylus in her right. She has the back end of the stylus touching her mouth, as if in thought. en Also known as "Portrait of a Young Woman with Stylus" 50 79 AD Fresco in the Fourth Pompeiian Style 17 May 1760 Pompeii, Kingdom of Naples 37 x 38 cm in on National Archaeological Museum of Naples, Italy 9084Rediscovering Pompeii: Exhibition by IBM-ITALIA, New York City, IBM Gallery of Science and Art, 12 July – 15 September 1990 "L'Erma" di Bretschneider Rome 88-7062-686-5 164 The "Sappho" fresco or Portrait of a Young Woman with Stylus is a fresco dating to the 1st century AD from the city of Pompeii, which was buried during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. It depicts a finely dressed young woman with a writing tablet and stylus, used in Roman painting to indicate literacy and education. The fresco is ascribed to the Fourth Style of Pompeiian painting and was recovered on 17 May 1760, in a house in the north-west of the city. It is displayed at the National Archaeological Museum, Naples. The portrait was speculatively identified as a depiction of the Greek poet Sappho in the nineteenth century, though no corroborating evidence for this suggestion exists. Most modern scholars treat it as a portrait of an educated, upper-class Pompeiian woman, though it has also been conjectured to be a representation of the Flavian satirist Sulpicia, who was active in the final quarter of the first century AD. The fresco was one of a number of artworks discovered at Pompeii between 1750 and 1760 which were speculatively identified as depictions of Sappho. These sparked renewed interest in the poet in European literature. The fresco was an important influence on the Chinese poet Shao Xunmei, who was inspired to take up poetry after seeing it on a visit to Naples in the early 1920s, and may also have influenced the American performance artist Eva Palmer. Description The fresco is dated to the third quarter of the 1st century AD.Silberberg-Peirce 1993 34Pompeii was destroyed by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD, providing a terminus ante quem for the painting.Cooley 2023 1 It depicts a woman, with brown hair,Bergmann 2018 149 holding the type of writing tablet and stylus used by Romans during the 1st century AD. Her clothing and hairstyle closely reflect mid-century fashions,Iacobelli Natalia 17 July 2025 Woman with Stylus: What a Portrait Can Tell Us About Women in Ancient Rome https://www.dailyartmagazine.com/woman-with-stylus-women-in-ancient-rome/ 6 August 2025 DailyArt Magazine en-USSilberberg-Peirce 1993 33 and include a golden hairnet and large golden earrings.Amery Curran 2002 144 The hairnet and tightly curled hairstyle were both characteristic of fashion under the reign of Nero (54 68) and the early Flavian period that followed.Ling 1991 158Bettina Bergmann describes the hairstyle as being "late Julio-Claudian".Bergmann 2018 143 It is considered part of the Fourth Style of Pompeian wall-painting.Lessing Varone 1996 121 alt=Plan of an ancient Roman city, divided into blocks by streets, with large buildings including a forum and an amphitheatre.|thumb|upright=1.2|Map of the excavations of Pompeii, showing the la regiones and la insulae as defined by modern archaeologists. Regio VI and the Insula Occidentalis are in the north-west, to the left of the image. The art historian Roger Ling de considers the portrait likely to be a generic representation: a "rather bland form of classicising beauty" similar to idealised portrait busts of women from earlier periods.Ling 1991 158 The subject holds a stylus in her right hand and rests its tip on her lips. The archaeologist Amedeo Maiuri describes the painting as "almost academically formal", and the subject's appearance as "refreshingly schoolgirlish".Maiuri 1953 99–100 The fresco embodies the literary and artistic trope of the la docta puella ("learned girl"). Writing tablets in Pompeiian portraits often functioned as symbols of education and literacy,Verbanck-Piérard 2025 88 and other frescoes show women with writing tablets in contexts that suggest commercial record-keeping.Silberberg-Peirce 1993 33–34 Amery Curran 2002 144 Since only a minority of the Roman population was literate, images of the la docta puella type were used by wealthy families to indicate their education and corresponding social status. According to Mauri, the subject's delicate features and tranquil gaze were intended to convey aristocratic breeding, while the writing implements serve as "but a pretext for a high-romantic pose".Maiuri 1953 99–100 The classicist Renate Johne de has used images of this type to argue that women played an important role as readers, and perhaps as pseudonymous authors, of ancient novels.Johne 2003 156–163 Modern archaeologists divide Pompeii into la regiones ("regions") and la insulae ("blocks"), the latter referring to blocks of buildings divided from each other by the city's streets.Milnor 2014 15 The fresco was found in a house in the Insula Occidentalis ("Western la insula") of Regio VI,Bergmann 2018 149 in the north-west of the city.Milnor 2014 15 It was originally displayed adjacent to an image of a young man, holding a scroll, which faced it across a square panel depicting the hero Perseus seated and holding the head of Medusa over himself and his lover Andromeda. The "Sappho" head was painted on the same side as that of Andromeda, while the young man's was on the same side as that of Perseus; the classicist Bettina Bergmann Q55110290 suggests that this was intended to draw the viewer's gaze towards the centre of the composition, which showed Medusa's head, which was believed to be able to turn viewers into stone.Bergmann 2018 149 Subject thumb|alt=Roman portrait: in a circular tondo, the face of a well-groomed young man wearing a laurel wreath and holding a scroll|The portrait of a young man originally displayed alongside the fresco During the 19th century, scholars speculated that the subject of the portrait was Sappho of Lesbos, an Ancient Greek poet active during the seventh and sixth centuries BC. This connection lent fame to the work. However, there is no label identifying the portrait as Sappho, and modern scholars now generally treat the portrait as that of an educated, upper-class Pompeiian woman.Silberberg-Peirce 1993Bernardeau Sandrine 21 August 2013 Portrait de jeune femme https://panoramadelart.com/analyse/portrait-de-jeune-femme 6 August 2025 Panorama de l'art fr Another Pompeiian painting, showing a marriage scene and from the Villa Imperiale, Pompeii it Villa Imperiale (Pompei) Villa Imperiale, includes a figure sometimes identified as Sappho.Wasdin 2018 200 Until the later twentieth century, roundel portraits such as the "Sappho" fresco were often considered purely decorative, with scholars generally discounting the suggestion that they may portray specific individuals. More recent studies have judged that Pompeiian painters used life models for their works, though it is usually difficult to discern which individuals are portrayed in specific works, and that roundel portraits could fill various roles, including as religious images and to signify the domestic nature of a space.Bergmann 2018 144 The art historian Susan Silberberg-Peirce has suggested that it could represent the Flavian satirist Sulpicia, and that the portrait of a young man found nearby would therefore represent Calenus, her husband.Silberberg-Peirce 1993 33–34 Excavation and display thumb|Excavation report of the mural, Naples Royal Printing House (1762)|alt=Three images: top, left and right, the "Sappho" portrait and the accompanying image of a young man; below, a drawing of a Roman writing-tablet.The first major excavations in Pompeii began in 1748.20 August 2025 Pompeii – Excavations, Ruins, Archaeology https://www.britannica.com/place/Pompeii/History-of-excavations 16 September 2025 Encyclopædia Britannica en This fresco was uncovered on 17 May 1760 in a house on land belonging to the local Cuomo family. Alongside it was a central panel depicting the myth of Andromeda and Perseus; the side panels contained the "Sappho" fresco paired with the pendant medallion of a young man clutching a scroll.Silberberg-Peirce 1993Bragantini Sampaolo 2009 It was removed from the walls of the original house, a common practice prior to the site's opening to the public in 1764, when ornamental pieces were often extracted for collections.Moormann 1987 88–92 Some of the other frescoes found near it were destroyed, and others were sold to private collectors.Bergmann 2018 148 The "Sappho" fresco currently resides at the National Archaeological Museum of Naples. In 1974, it was placed on display alongside fragments of other frescoes found nearby by the curator Agnes Allroggen-Bedel Q24278398, reconstructing one wall of the original building.Bergmann 2018 148 In 2022, it was exhibited in Japan at the Tokyo National Museum.Pompeii: Special Exhibition: List of Works Tokyo National Museum https://pompeii2022.jp/asset/pdf/list_en.pdf 3 October 2026 Legacy The Chinese poet Shao Xunmei saw the "Sappho" fresco during a visit to Naples in the early 1920s; in the words of the literary scholar Jingling Chen, the experience made him "the most passionate admirer of Sappho in modern China".Chen 2021 479–480 Shao began writing poetry following his visit, and often imitated of Sappho's works, which he read in English translation. His output included a 1925 poem titled "Sappho" and dedicated to her.Chen 2021 480–481 The American actress, artist and Hellenist Eva Palmer probably saw the painting during a year spent in Europe between 1898 and 1899: she subsequently performed a tableau vivant themed around Sappho in a 1900 variety show in Bar Harbor, Maine.Leontis 2019 10–13 The classicist Margaret Reynolds (Professor) Q87208740 Margaret Reynolds credits the "Sappho" fresco, along with a bust, a statue and a mosaic – all found at Pompeii in the 1750s and all equally speculatively identified as images of the poet – with inspiring the Italian poet Vincenzo Imperiale Q24262150's it La Faoniade: Inni ed Odi di Saffo ("The Faoniad: Hymns and Odes of Sappho"), which spuriously claimed to be a translation of a lost work of hers. She also considers these artworks an inspiration for the French writer Étienne-François de Lantier's 1798 fr Voyages d’Anténor en Grèce et en Asie ("Voyages of Antenor in Greece and in Asia"), in which the title character meets Sappho on the day of her death by suicide.Reynolds 2010 Footnotes Explanatory notes References 30em Bibliography 30em Amery Colin Colin Amery Curran Brian 144 2002 The Lost World of Pompeii J. Paul Getty Museum Los Angeles 0-89236-687-7 Bergmann Bettina 2018 Longfellow Brenda Perry Ellen At Face Value: Painted Ladies on Pompeian Walls Roman Artists, Patrons, & Public Consumption: Familiar Works Reconsidered 142–165 University of Michigan Press Ann Arbor 978-0-472-13065-8 Bragantini Irene Sampaolo Valeria 2009 La pittura pompeiana Pompeian Painting Electa, Soprintendenza archeologica Napoli e Pompei 978-88-510-0575-7 Chen Jingling Finglass P. J. Patrick Finglass Kelly Adrian 2021 The Cambridge Companion to Sappho Sappho in China and Japan Cambridge University Press 978-1-316-63877-4 473–486 Cooley Alison Alison E. Cooley 2023 Pompeii Bloomsbury London 978-1-350-12524-7 Johne Renate Women in the Ancient Novel Brill Leiden Revised 2003 The Novel in the Ancient World Schmeling Gareth L. 0-391-04134-7 151–207 Leontis Artemis Eva Palmer Sikelianos: A Life in Ruins 2019 Princeton University Press 978-0-691-21076-6 Lessing Erich Varone Antonio 1996 Pompeii Paris Terrail 2-87939-007-9 Ling Roger Roman Painting 1991 Cambridge University Press 0-521-30614-0 https://archive.org/details/romanpainting0000ling Internet Archive limited Maiuri Amedeo Amedeo Maiuri 1953 99–100 Roman Painting Skira New York 1036938967 https://archive.org/details/romanpainting0000amed Internet Archive limited Milnor Kristina Kristina Milnor 2014 Graffiti and the Literary Landscape in Roman Pompeii Oxford University Press 978-0-19-176504-9 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199684618.001.0001 Moormann E. M. 1987 Destruction and Restoration of Campanian Mural Paintings in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries S. Cather Sharon Cather The Conservation of Wall Paintings http://www.getty.edu/conservation/publications_resources/pdf_publications/pdf/wall_paintings.pdf 87–101 https://web.archive.org/web/20251211002111/https://www.getty.edu/conservation/publications_resources/pdf_publications/pdf/wall_paintings.pdf 11 December 2025 dead Reynolds Margaret The Sappho Companion 2010 Random House London 978-1-4464-1376-0 Silberberg-Peirce Susan 1993 The Muse Restored: Images of Women in Roman Painting https://www.jstor.org/stable/1358447 Woman's Art Journal 14 2 28–36 10.2307/1358447 0270-7993 1358447 subscription Wasdin Katherine 2018 Eros at Dusk: Ancient Wedding and Love Poetry Oxford University Press 200 978-0-19-086909-0 Verbanck-Piérard Annie 2025 To Write and Read, Count and Record, Certify and Attest: The Multiple Functions of Tablets in Greek and Roman Antiquity The Writing Tablets of Roman Tongeren (Belgium) and Associated Wooden Finds Brepols Publishers jj.47367694.10 free 71–100 Hartoch Else Turnhout 978-2-503-61687-2 Category:1st-century paintings Category:1760s archaeological discoveries Category:Ancient Roman paintings Category:Archaeological discoveries in Italy Category:Fresco paintings in the National Archaeological Museum, Naples Category:Pompeii (ancient city) Category:Portraits of women Category:Roman Empire art Category:Sappho Category:Articles with quotation marks in the title