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Source Description
The Sphinx, a mythical creature-part lion, part woman-grimaces in horror as Oedipus solves her riddle: "What is that which has one voice and yet becomes four-footed, two-footed, and three-footed?" Oedipus replies, "Man, for as a babe he is four-footed, as an adult he is two-footed, and as an old man he gets a third support, a cane," and the Sphinx hurls herself onto the rocks below, which are strewn with the bones of her victims.Ingres, who frequently repeated the subjects of his paintings, first depicted this story at the beginning of his career and returned to it several times, making variations in the composition, such as reversing the direction in which the figures faced.
Scholar Source Context
Document identity
localId
7916
label
Oedipus and the Sphinx
core
obj
dtoType
drawing
citationUrl
pageCount
1
Source metadata
id
7916
sourceUrl
contentType
drawing
stage
normalized
title
Oedipus and the Sphinx
description
The Sphinx, a mythical creature-part lion, part woman-grimaces in horror as Oedipus solves her riddle: "What is that which has one voice and yet becomes four-footed, two-footed, and three-footed?" Oedipus replies, "Man, for as a babe he is four-footed, as an adult he is two-footed, and as an old man he gets a third support, a cane," and the Sphinx hurls herself onto the rocks below, which are strewn with the bones of her victims.Ingres, who frequently repeated the subjects of his paintings, first depicted this story at the beginning of his career and returned to it several times, making variations in the composition, such as reversing the direction in which the figures faced.
provenance
M. Emile Pereire, 1864, by commission [painted for Pereire]; Pereire Sale, Paris, March 6-9, 1872, no. 26; Secrétan Sale, Paris, July 1-7, 1889, no. 37; P. A. Chéramy Sale, Paris, May 5-7, 1908, no. 20 [208 (?)]; Henry Walters, Baltimore, 1908, by purchase [Dikran Kelekian as agent]; Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.
date
1864
citationUrl
rightsUri
CC0
language
en
genreSpecific
Painting & Drawing
oil paintings (visual works)
imageCount
1
pageCount
1
source
import
dimensions
units
cm
width
105.5
height
87
dimensionsRaw
H: 41 9/16 x W: 34 1/4 in. (105.5 x 87 cm); Framed H: 59 3/8 x W: 52 1/8 x D: 7 3/8 in. (150.81 x 132.4 x 18.73 cm)
Source extras
inscriptions
[Signature] Lower center: J. Ingres fbat/etatis/; [Date] Lower center: LXXXIII/1864; [Number] On reverse: 160; [Number] On reverse: 6385
med
oil on canvas
creator_ids
4535
collection_ids
EAN
exhibition_ids
974
6
1962
2113
442
2228
2159
840
13
316
2953
2297
108
3106
2497
3107
2259
3300
Single page context
seq
1
pageIndex
0
type
photo
mediaId
117181b0fe61dc8e