Description

A superb and rare terracotta Art Nouveau portrait bust of Sappho, the famous Ancient Greek poetess, sculpted by HL Blasche. There are plaster versions of this sculpture, but the terracotta ones are most uncommon.
Sappho was greatly loved for her personification of love and affection, and her creativity. Her poetry was so rhythmical, usually accompanied by music and dance, that it gained the reputation for being the Divine Inspiration of the Muses.
She was born on the Aegean island of Lesbos
about 615 BC. To the Greeks Homer was the Poet and Sappho was the Poetess. Plato called her The Tenth Muse.
Those who know the language of ancient Greece have long ago convinced us that much of the beauty of Greek lyric verse is lost in English translation.
The Greeks' appreciation of the poetry of Sappho gave her the recognition as one of the greatest of women poets and the greatest of all lyric poets.
She was married and the mother of a child but her poetry reveals her sexual attraction to women. Our English word for sexual love between women is derived from Lesbos the name of the island where Sappho lived. Her imagery and the intensity of her poetry transcends sexual reference; it is poetry lifted to an ethereal plane. It is said that Sappho's use of every word has a perfection and inimitable grace.
This bust, 24 inches tall, beautifully sculpted and painted, was made by Reps & Trinte of Magdeburg, Saxony in c. 1900. It bears their pre 1910 mark; 'R & T Mgdbg Gesetzl Geschibz'.
The company was founded by Carl Reps in 1889 and made artworks in terracotta, marble and bronze. They exhibited at the St. Louis World's Fair in 1904.
SIZE: 24 inches tall.
PROVENANCE: In a Yorkshire Private collection since 1973.
Internal Ref: lyric

Dimensions

Height = 61 cm (24")
Width = 44 cm (18")
Depth = 22 cm (9")