Italian school; end of the 19th century.

Italian school; end of XIX century.
"Sappho".
Carved alabaster.
Presents faults and losses.
Measurements: 111 x 38,5 x 38,5 cm.
This alabaster sculpture represents the Greek poetess Sappho and explicitly follows the famous model conceived by James Pradier, whose marble version is preserved in the Louvre Museum (inv. RF 2499). In fact, the model became so popular that a medium-sized bronze copy was presented at the 1848 Salon (no. 4882), which contributed decisively to the diffusion of the iconographic type and its subsequent reinterpretation in different materials and formats throughout the 19th century.
The figure shows Sappho standing, wrapped in a peplum of delicate folds that adhere to the body and reveal an idealized conception of the female anatomy, heir to academic classicism. The poetess rests one of her arms on a fragmented Ionic column, an iconographic resource that alludes both to classical antiquity and to the romantic notion of ruin and memory. In the other hand she holds a lyre partially veiled by the drapery, an attribute that unequivocally identifies her as a symbol of lyrical poetry. The gently bowed head and the restrained expression of the face suggest a melancholic introspection in keeping with the nineteenth-century image of Sappho as a tragic and sublime figure.
The pedestal, quadrangular in plan and articulated in classically inspired moldings, incorporates on its front a relief with the scene of the abduction of the sabines, a motif taken from Roman history that introduces an additional narrative dimension. This inclusion responds to the historicist taste of the period, integrating in the same piece the evocation of archaic Greece, embodied in Sappho, and an emblematic episode of legendary Rome. The lower relief, treated with meticulousness and moderate depth, shows the technical skill of the workshop and reinforces the overall sculptural character of the whole.
The choice of alabaster, a material prized in nineteenth-century Italian production for its translucency and ability to capture subtle gradations of light, gives the work a translucent quality. The polished surface accentuates the smoothness of the volumes and enhances the idealizing effect of late academicism. This work must be understood in the context of the wide reception and reproduction of sculptural models consecrated by the Parisian Salon and by the academic sculpture of the first half of the 19th century. Italian workshops, particularly active in the export of decorative sculptures to European and American markets, frequently reinterpreted famous compositions, adapting them to different formats and materials. In this sense, the present work is an eloquent testimony to the survival of the neoclassical ideal and its assimilation into the eclectic taste of the late 19th century.