Anonymous Italian Maker Sphinx 18th century jasper cameo on quartz Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
Roman Empire Sarcophagus fragment with Sphinx ca. AD 200 marble relief British Museum |
Palissy ware Salt Cellar with Sphinxes ca. 1560-1600 lead-glazed earthenware Los Angeles County Museum of Art |
Hellenistic Egypt Recumbent Sphinx Figurine on a Stepped Platform ca. 323-30 BC bronze Los Angeles County Museum of Art |
Niccolò Amastini Oedipus and the Sphinx ca. 1800-1820 sardonyx cameo Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |
Doccia Manufactory, Florence Sweetmeat Dish with Sphinx ca. 1750-60 porcelain Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
from Lilith
What night is this, made denser, in his breast
or round him, suddenly or first confest
after its gradual thickening complete?
as tho' the mighty current, bearing fleet
the unresting stars, had here devolved its lees,
stagnant, contempt, on recreant destinies;
as tho' a settling of tremendous pens,
above the desolate dream, had shed immense
addition to the incumbence of despair
downward, across the crypt of stirless air,
from some henceforth infrangible altitude,
upon his breast, that knows no dawn renew'd,
builded enormously, each brazen stage,
with rigor of his hope in hopeless age
mummied, and look that turns his thew to stone:
even hers, that is his strangling sphinx, made known
with, on her breast, his fore-erected tomb,
engraven deep, the letters of his doom.
– Christopher John Brennan (1898)
Ancient Greece Sphinx Finial from Grave Stele ca. 375-350 BC marble Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
Ancient Greece Sphinx atop Capital from Grave Shaft ca. 580-575 BC marble Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
Ancient Greek culture in South Italy Sphinx seated on Aeolic Capital ca. 480-460 BC terracotta Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
Anonymous French Maker Winged Sphinx ca. 1790-1800 giltwood Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
Anonymous Italian Maker Pair of Sphinxes ca. 1560 bronze Getty Museum, Los Angeles |
Ancient Greece Pinax Fragment with Sphinx facing Griffin ca, 600-570 BC terracotta relief Harvard Art Museums |
Ancient Greece Kylix with Sphinxes (detail) ca. 550-540 BC painted terracotta Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
Anonymous Italian Maker Two Sphinxes 16th century agate cameo Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |
Anonymous Italian Maker Pendant with Sphinx ca. 1600 baroque pearls and jewels set in enameled gold Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |