Lesbian Flag Violets

8”x 10” acrylic on canvas with hanging hardware. Part of the Pride in Florals collection.

Violets have a sapphic connection dating back to the Ancient Greek poet Sappho from the island Lesbos. She describes women in one of her poems as having crowns of violets and other blooms. Violets appear again in the 1926 Broadway play “The Captive” in which one woman character sends a bouquet of violets to another woman character as a show of romantic love. After this violets became widely associated with lesbians in the U.S. In victorian flower language violets mean modesty, honesty, and loyalty.