Sappho and Erinna in a Garden at Mytilene

They are seated on a stone bench with a high curved back amid the foliage of a garden in Mytilene, on the island of Lesbos.

A small deer stands on the bench beside Erinna: the animal is an attribute of Artemis, but also sacred to Apollo, perhaps associating Sappho with the Muses.

Sappho may be identified by her traditional attributes lying discarded beside a female statue nearby: some lines of poetry, and a musical instrument.

It has been suggested that the Sappho figure resembles either Keomi Gray or Fanny Eaton, both models for several pre-Raphaelite painters.

The Tate also holds Solomon's slightly earlier, c. 1842, graphite on paper study of Sappho's head, also acquired in 1980.