In France, Claude Ramey (1801) exhibited a seated statue; Duret (1806), a Sappho writing to Phaon; Beauvallet (1817), a bust; Diebolt (1848), a dying Sappho of noble and poetical expression. Other statues of Sappho were made and exhibited in the Salon by Laurent (1849), Grootaers (1852), Travaux (1852, now in the Louvre), Aizelin (1853, bronze), Loison (1859), Grabowski (1859), Clésinger (1859, three statues, “Sappho singing her last song, Seated on the Leucadian rock,” “The youth of Sappho,” and a polychrome statue), Robinet (1861), Doriot (1872), and Signora Maraini. In America, too, from the days of Story and Hezekiah Augur to the bronze doors of the new Detroit Public Library Sappho has been a subject for sculpture. Many are the busts which are inscribed to-day with the name of Sappho, such as that by A. Gennai in the possession of Mrs. W. B. Hill of Baltimore, or that by Sheldon.
In painting, though not often a subject for the greatest painters, Sappho was represented in Greek and Roman days and ever since right down to the most famous modern picture of her and her pupils by Alma Tadema, of which we have given a description above (p. 32). Several pictures, such as Titian’s _Sacred and Profane Love_, have been supposed by great critics to represent Sappho, but it is difficult to agree with Poppelreuter that Titian really meant to paint a Naiad counselling Sappho, who is lamenting her love in the forest, to take the Leucadian leap.[134] In some cases fortunately the painters themselves have labelled them. Raphael is perhaps the greatest painter who pictured her. He brings her significantly in his _Parnassus_ (Pl. 24) into juxtaposition with Petrarch, who dedicated four verses of his tenth eclogue to her (see p. 136). She is represented prominently to the left of the doorway, resting her left arm on it and holding in her left hand a papyrus roll with the name Sappho upon it. Other minor painters who have painted Sappho are Treshain (1683, “The Adventures of Sappho”), Ansiaux (1801), Ducis (1812), Vafflard (1819, “Sappho rescued from the water by a stranger”), Girodet (1828, a series of compositions from her first love affair to the legendary leap), Lafond (1831), Vien (1833, “Sappho playing the lyre,” and “Sappho reciting to Phaon”), Chasseriau (1850), Chautard (1855), Agneni (1857, “Sappho rescued from the water by the Nereids”), Credès (1859), Kauffmann (two beautiful pictures, “Sappho inspired by love” and “Sappho talking with Homer;” these like many of the other pictures were also engraved). Barrias painted a sleeping, nude Sappho, with her lyre by her side, and represents her perhaps repeating the words: “The silver moon is set; The Pleiades are gone; Half the long night is spent, and yet I lie alone” (Merivale). Other painters of Sappho are Fragonard, Gros, Devosge, Bartolazzi, Picou (1863), Loir (1864), Chifflart (1865), Bertrand (1867, “Death of Sappho”), Gastaldi (1873, “Sappho meditating suicide”), Gleyre (“Couch of Sappho”). Hector Leroux in his “School of Sappho” represents her standing in the atrium of a Roman house, with lyre in her left hand, on a platform inscribed with the name of the Lesbian Sappho, evidently giving instruction to her many friends and pupils who stand and sit in various postures in the audience.