For the play by Percy MacKaye

Percy MacKaye

Percy MacKaye was an American dramatist and poet.-Biography:MacKaye was born in New York City, New York. After graduating from Harvard in 1897, he traveled in Europe for three years, residing in Rome, Switzerland and London, studying at the University of Leipzig in 1899–1900...

, see Sappho and Phaon (play).

Sappho and Phaon is an 1809 neoclassical

Neoclassicism

Neoclassicism is the name given to Western movements in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that draw inspiration from the "classical" art and culture of Ancient Greece or Ancient Rome...

 painting by the French painter Jacques-Louis David

Jacques-Louis David

Jacques-Louis David was an influential French painter in the Neoclassical style, considered to be the preeminent painter of the era...

 of Cupid

Cupid

In Roman mythology, Cupid is the god of desire, affection and erotic love. He is the son of the goddess Venus and the god Mars. His Greek counterpart is Eros...

, Sappho

Sappho

Sappho was an Ancient Greek poet, born on the island of Lesbos. Later Greeks included her in the list of nine lyric poets. Her birth was sometime between 630 and 612 BC, and it is said that she died around 570 BC, but little is known for certain about her life...

 and her lover Phaon

Phaon

Phaon in Greek mythology was a boatman of Mitylene in Lesbos. He was old and ugly when Aphrodite came to his boat. She put on the guise of a crone. Phaon ferried her over to Asia Minor and accepted no payment for doing so. In return, she gave him a box of ointment. When he rubbed it on himself, he...

. It was commissioned by Count Nikolai Yusupov

Nikolai Yusupov

Nikolai Yusupov was a Russian nobleman and art collector of the house of Yusupov. He was the eldest son of Prince Boris Grigorievich Yusupov...

 and is now the only painting by David in the Hermitage Museum

Hermitage Museum

The State Hermitage is a museum of art and culture in Saint Petersburg, Russia. One of the largest and oldest museums of the world, it was founded in 1764 by Catherine the Great and has been opened to the public since 1852. Its collections, of which only a small part is on permanent display,...

 in Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...

.

Sappho is shown sitting in a chair at the foot of a bed in a classically decorated room with columns, a marble floor and a view to a rural landscape outside (with Venus

Venus (mythology)

Venus is a Roman goddess principally associated with love, beauty, sex,sexual seduction and fertility, who played a key role in many Roman religious festivals and myths...

's birds, doves, sitting on the doorstep). Phaon stands behind the chair holding a spear and bow. On her knee is a scroll with some of her verses in praise of Phaon and Cupid kneels in front of her, holding up her lyre, which she tries to play with her right hand whilst leaning her head back to let Phaon cradle her head in his left arm.

External links

• Hermitage site - catalogue entry