SABLET, Jacques Henri
(b. 1749, Lausanne, d. 1803, Paris)

Roman Elegy

1791
Oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts, Brest

The Swiss painter Jacques Henri Sablet interpreted the myth of antiquity with an almost proto-romantic sensitivity. In his painting entitled Roman Elegy he depicted a powerfully evocative nocturne with a pyramid and two sophisticated gentlemen dressed in black. The title is clearly a tribute to Goethe's Roman Elegies.