The
Sphinx was a popular image for painters working with mythological and allegorical themes in the 19th century. Many painters chose to paint sphinxes as "real", half human chimeras that interacted with the protagonist in the painting, but I prefer sphinxes as enigmatic stone sentinels gazing over moonlit deserts. I find it much more mysterious and romantic.
Luc Oliver Merson "Le Repose En Egypt" 1897
Frantisek Kupka "The Path of Silence" 1900
Salvador Dali (strangely I snagged this image, lost the page with the info- and can't find it again!)
Louis Welden Hawkins "The Sphinx and the Chimera"
Elihu Vedder "Listening To The Sphinx" 1863
