The Lesbian Sparrow, By Raphaël Poggi 1867

The Lesbian Sparrow, by Raphaël Poggi.
Oil on wooden panel dated 1867.
Very good condition and very beautiful frame in wood and drilled stucco.
Dimensions with frame 73x63 cm

Raphaël Poggi is an Italian painter born around 1840 and died in 1892. He worked in Paris where he mainly painted scenes taken from antiquity in the neo-Pompeian style popular at the time.

Lying naked on the bed of a Pompeian villa, a woman with long, loose red hair hands a dead bird to a young poet seated near her.
Our painting is inspired by a famous poem by the Roman poet Catullus (84 BC - 54 BC). In 62, Catullus met Clodia, sister of the future tribune of the plebs and enemy of Cicero Publius Clodius Pulcher; he celebrates her in his verses under the name of Lesbie. This connection lasts from 62 to 58 and it is for her that the poet writes:
Cry, Venus and you Lovers, and all of you as you are, men sensitive to beauty. My friend's sparrow is dead, the sparrow, my friend's delight, whom she loved more than her eyes; for he was sweet as honey and knew his mistress as well as a little girl knows her mother, and he never strayed from her bosom, but hopping now here, now there, for his only mistress he never ceased to chirp. Now he is going along the dark path, there, from which, they say, no one returns. But curse you, evil darkness of Orcus, which devours all pretty things: you have taken away from me such a pretty sparrow! O misfortune! O poor little sparrow! Now, because of you, my friend's eyes, swollen with tears, are reddening.