"Sappho" fresco (Pompeii)

"Sappho" fresco
Also known as "Portrait of a Young Woman with Stylus"
Type	Fresco in the Fourth Pompeiian Style
Size	37 cm × 38 cm (15 in × 15 in)
Created	c. 50 – c. 79 AD
Discovered	17 May 1760 Pompeii, Kingdom of Naples
Present location	National Archaeological Museum of Naples, Italy
Registration	9084 [1]

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. It is displayed at the National Archaeological Museum, Naples, alongside the Portrait of Terentius Neo, another Pompeiian painting showing a woman with symbols of literacy.

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.

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 performer Eva Palmer-Sikelianos.

Description

The fresco is dated to the third quarter of the 1st century AD. ^{[2] [3] [a]} It depicts a woman holding the type of writing tablet and stylus used by Romans during the 1st century AD, and her clothing and hairstyle closely reflect mid-century fashions. ^{[5] [3]} The subject's attire includes a golden hairnet and large golden earrings. ^[6] The hairnet and tightly curled hairstyle were both characteristic of fashion under the reign of Nero (r. 54–68) and the early Flavian period that followed. ^[7]

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". ^[8] The fresco embodies the literary and artistic trope of the docta puella ("learned girl"). Writing tablets were often used in Pompeiian portraits as symbols of literacy; only a minority of the Roman population was literate at the time, and images of the docta puella type were used by wealthy families to indicate their education and corresponding social status. ^[5] 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". ^[8] The art historian Roger Ling similarly 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. ^[7]

Depictions of women with writing tablets (sometimes in contexts that suggest commercial record-keeping) along with records of female landowners in Pompeii, suggest that women held roles in business and the arts. ^{[3] [6]} The classicist Renate Johne has used images of this type to argue that women played an important role as readers, and perhaps as pseudonymous authors, of ancient novels. ^[9]

Subject

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. ^{[3] [10]} Another Pompeiian painting, showing a marriage scene and from the Villa Imperiale, includes a figure sometimes identified as Sappho. ^[11]

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. ^[12] 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. ^[3]

Excavation

Excavation report of the mural, Naples Royal Printing House (1762)

The first major excavations in Pompeii began in 1748. ^[13] This fresco was uncovered on 17 May 1760 in Regio VI, Insula Occidentalis, in a house on land belonging to the local Cuomo family. ^[5] 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. ^{[3] [5] [14]}

The "Sappho" fresco currently resides at the National Archaeological Museum of Naples. ^[10] It was removed from the walls of the original house, a common practice during 18th-century excavations, when ornamental pieces smaller than 30 square centimetres (4.7 sq in) were often extracted for collections. ^{[10] [15]}

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". ^[16] 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. ^[17]

The American actress, artist and Hellenist Eva Palmer-Sikelianos 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. ^[18] The classicist 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's 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 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. ^[19]

Footnotes

Explanatory notes

1. Pompeii was destroyed by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD, providing a terminus ante quem for the painting. ^[4]

References

1. Rediscovering Pompeii: Exhibition by IBM-ITALIA, New York City, IBM Gallery of Science and Art, 12 July – 15 September 1990. Rome: "L'Erma" di Bretschneider. p. 164. ISBN   88-7062-686-5.
2. Draycott, Jane (23 May 2023). "Foreword". Cleopatra's Daughter: From Roman Prisoner to African Queen. Liveright Publishing. ISBN   978-1-324-09260-5.
3. Silberberg-Peirce, Susan (1993). "The Muse Restored: Images of Women in Roman Painting" . Woman's Art Journal. 14 (2): 28–36. doi:10.2307/1358447. ISSN   0270-7993. JSTOR   1358447.
4. Cooley, Alison (2023). Pompeii. London: Bloomsbury. p. 1. ISBN   978-1-350-12524-7.
5. Iacobelli, Natalia (2025-07-17). "Woman with Stylus: What a Portrait Can Tell Us About Women in Ancient Rome". DailyArt Magazine. Retrieved 2025-08-06.
6. Amery, Colin; Curran, Brian (2002). The Lost World of Pompeii. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum. p. 144. ISBN   0-89236-687-7.
7. Ling, Roger (1991). Roman Painting . Cambridge University Press. p. 158. ISBN   0-521-30614-0 – via Internet Archive.
8. Maiuri, Amedeo (1953). Roman Painting . New York: Skira. pp. 99–100. OCLC   1036938967 – via Internet Archive.
9. Johne, Renate (2003). "Women in the Ancient Novel". In Schmeling, Gareth L. (ed.). The Novel in the Ancient World (Revised ed.). Leiden: Brill. pp. 156–163. ISBN   0-391-04134-7.
10. Bernardeau, Sandrine (21 August 2013). "Portrait de jeune femme". Panorama de l'art (in French). Retrieved 2025-08-06.
11. Wasdin, Katherine. Eros at Dusk: Ancient Wedding and Love Poetry. Oxford University Press. p. 200. ISBN   978-0-19-086909-0.
12. Bergmann, Bettina. "At Face Value: Painted Ladies on Pompeiian Walls". In Longfellow, Brenda; Perry, Ellen (eds.). Roman Artists, Patrons, and Public Consumption: Familiar Works Reconsidered. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. p. 144. ISBN   978-0-472-13065-8.
13. "Pompeii - Excavations, Ruins, Archaeology". Encyclopædia Britannica. 2025-08-20. Retrieved 2025-09-16.
14. Bragantini, Irene; Sampaolo, Valeria (2009) [526]. La pittura pompeiana[Pompeian Painting]. Electa, Soprintendenza archeologica Napoli e Pompei. ISBN   9788851005757.
15. Moormann, E. M. (1987). "Destruction and Restoration of Campanian Mural Paintings in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries". In S. Cather (ed.). The Conservation of Wall Paintings (PDF). pp. 87–101.
16. Chen, Jingling (2021). "Sappho in China and Japan". In Finglass, P. J.; Kelly, Adrian (eds.). The Cambridge Companion to Sappho. Cambridge University Press. pp. 479–480. ISBN   978-1-316-63877-4.
17. Chen, Jingling (2021). "Sappho in China and Japan". In Finglass, P. J.; Kelly, Adrian (eds.). The Cambridge Companion to Sappho. Cambridge University Press. pp. 480–481. ISBN   978-1-316-63877-4.
18. Leontis, Artemis (2019). Eva Palmer Sikelianos: A Life in Ruins. Princeton University Press. pp. 10–13. ISBN   978-0-691-21076-6.
19. Reynolds, Margaret (2010). The Sappho Companion. London: Random House. ISBN   978-1-4464-1376-0.