Lovers of Bordeaux

The potter Pistillus, who was active in Autun (Saône-et-Loire) towards the end of the 2nd-beginning of the 3rd century A.D., has produced in this work an outstanding and tender version of the intimacy of a Gallo-Roman couple.

The man and woman are caressing each other on a big Roman-type bed, under the relative protection of a dog sleeping at their feet. This peacefully erotic scene contrasts sharply both with the usually crude erotic figures on terracotta lamps of the Roman period and with the formal respectability of the stone funerary stelae portraying Gallo-Roman couples.

This couple, sometimes known as the Lovers of Bordeaux (from the name of the city where the pottery was found in 1850) is a fairly unusual example in the Gallo-Roman production of terracotta figurines, most of which represent divinities such as Venus or mother goddesses.