Lithograph from the volume “Ce Qu'on Dit et Ce Qu'on Pense” featuring Gioachino Rossini by Jean-Gabriel Scheffer

George Mason University Collections

Browse Lithograph from the volume “Ce Qu'on Dit et Ce Qu'on Pense” featuring Gioachino Rossini by Jean-Gabriel Scheffer

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Single lithograph from the bound volume “Ce Qu'on Dit et Ce Qu'on Pense,” translated from the French to “What We Say and What We Think,” created by the Swiss lithographer Jean-Gabriel Scheffer in 1829. The volume features multiple lithographic illustrations of various instances of people demonstrating that what they are saying to others is not what they are, in fact, thinking. This particular illustration features the prominent Italian opera composer Gioachino Rossini speaking with a young man standing next to a piano in a salon, a cello leaning against the keyboard. In addition to the titular text, below the image text in French reads “Je donnerais trois op[é]ras pour avoir fait votre romance,” which translates to “I would give three operas for making your romance.” Parallel to the text is a printed music quotation from Rossini’s opera La Cenerentola, in which the character Don Magnifico describes a dream he has about a flying donkey: “Un somaro, ma sollene” which translates from the Italian to “A donkey, but solemn,” illustrating was Rossini actually “thinks” about the young man.