Collections Database

Label Text:
Tresham, an Irish-born artist and art dealer active in Rome, adopted the new printmaking technique of aquatint for his volume of eighteen plates illustrating scenes from a popular novel: Conte Alessandro Verri’s 1780 Le avventure di Saffo poetessa di Mitilene (“The Adventures of Sappho, Poetess of Mytilene”).

Verri downplayed the homosexuality for which the ancient poet is known, and presented a Sappho more in keeping with the female protagonists of other best-selling novels. His Sappho is a teenage girl whose desire for Phaon (a youth transformed by Venus into a perfect specimen of male beauty) sets the story in motion: she writes love poetry, pursues her beloved despite the warnings of her wise advisers, and ultimately commits suicide by leaping from the cliffs at Leucas.

Amherst’s prints (Ascolta e spera ["She Listens and Hopes"] and Il mesto convito ["The Sad Feast"]) show Sappho spying on the beautiful youth, and languishing in his absence. To create the subtle tonalities of The Sad Feast, Tresham printed the brown-ink portions of the scene atop passages of pale green.

EEB

Subjects:
Aquatint

Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=AC+2012.300

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