"Sappho" fresco (Pompeii)

The so-called Sappho fresco is a small Roman wall painting, about 37 by 38 centimeters, discovered in Pompeii in 1760 and dated to the third quarter of the first century AD. It shows a finely dressed young woman wearing a gold hairnet and earrings, holding a wax tablet and touching a stylus thoughtfully to her lips. Nineteenth century scholars speculatively identified her as the Greek poet Sappho, a name the portrait still carries, though no evidence supports the identification and she is now generally understood as an educated Pompeiian woman; the fresco is held at the National Archaeological Museum of Naples.