The statue of Sappho in Athens was made by Antoine Bourdelle and is located in Onassis Foundation. Sappho (~ 630 – 570 BC), was a Greek lyric poet from Lesvos, particularly well known from antiquity to the present day.
Sappho wrote love poems, hymns to the gods and epithalamia (wedding songs).
Her poetry vibrated with spontaneity and intense emotions. Little is known about her life. It is likely that she was born in Eresos, Lesvos. She was a contemporary of Alcaeus and Pittacus. She was born to an aristocratic family on the island of Lesbos during a great cultural blooming in the area.
When the aristocracy of the island was driven into exile from Mytilene due to political unrest, Sappho fled to Sicily. Later, after the fall of tyranny, she returned to Lesvos and gathered around her young women from the aristocracy of the island and the cities of Asia Minor to teach them the arts of music and poetry, in the service of Aphrodite and the Muses. The philosopher Maximus of Tyre (2nd half of the 2nd century AD) describes her as small and dark-haired. She was considered to be homosexual, and that identification accompanies the poet to this day. In modern times, lesbian love has also been associated with her name.
After her death, a coin was minted in Lesbos in her image, statues of her were erected in Syracuse and Pergamum, and a cenotaph was built in Syracuse in her memory. It is possible that many of her works were lost due to their not being copied, perhaps because of their low demand after the rise of Christianity and a more strict view of morality.