Sappho

This 1849 Sappho at the Musée d'Orsay depicts the ancient Greek poetess whose work and legendary fate—a leap from the Leucadian cliff for love of the ferryman Phaon—made her the supreme figure of passionate female creativity in the Western tradition. Sappho had been a repeated subject for Chassériau, who identified with her combination of Mediterranean origins, creative intensity, and tragic passion. The 1849 version, exhibited at the Salon, shows his mature synthesis: the classical figure painting of his Ingres training combined with the atmospheric color and emotional abandon he absorbed from Delacroix. The Orsay's holding places this among the key works of French Romantic figure painting in the mid-nineteenth century.

The ancient poetess is rendered with Chassériau's distinctive combination of Ingresque drawing and romantic coloring, the classical subject treated with the emotional intensity and sensuous warmth that distinguished his personal artistic synthesis.