Jean-Bernard Restout: The pleasures of Anacreon (1767)

(Private Collection)

A painting by the French artist Jean-Bernard Restout (1732-1797). Anacreon (582 – 485 BC) was a Greek lyric poet, notable for his drinking songs and hymns. Restout shows the poet in the act of singing or reciting one of his poems to the accompaniment of music, the manner in which lyric poetry was meant to be performed. He is seated on a divan in an open room surrounded by sumptuous fabrics and objects and accompanied by a courtesan playing a lyre. In his left hand he is holding a silver cup presumably filled with wine. Painting from 1767.