Sphinx

Roman art

This sculpture is displayed as a pendant to another that scholars believe is modern and carved after a design by Luigi Canina. The sphinx, with the body of a lion and the face of a woman, is portrayed lying down with its front legs stretched out in front of it. It is wearing a nemes, the headdress worn by Pharaohs, which is resting on its chest and decorated in the middle of the forehead with an uraeus, the helical serpent that was the protector of the Pharaohs.

The sculpture is Roman and was carved during the Imperial period, inspired by a model imitating Egyptian art.

Object details

Commentary

In the seventeenth century, Iacomo Manilli and Domenico Montelatici reported numerous statues of Sphinxes decorating the garden of the Villa Borghese, in ‘Pietra di Egitto o Granito Orientale’ (Egyptian stone or Oriental granite’), including, one would imagine, the two Sphinxes now displayed in Room VII (Manilli 1650, pp. 22, 120, 122, 124–125; Montelatici 1700, pp. 77, 79, 317).

In a report sent by Evasio Gozzani to Prince Camillo Borghese in 1826, the sculpture, placed ‘sotto l’archi che portano l’acqua al Lago’ (‘under the arches that bring the water to the lake’), was among the works selected to decorate the rooms stripped by the sale to France in 1806. In the ‘Quinta Nota’ of the restoration work assigned to the sculptors Labourer and d’Este, in 1828, the objects in the workshop of Antonio d’Este awaiting restoration included ‘Due Sfingi di Basalte’ (‘Two Basalt Sphinxes’). The cost of the work, which is described in a long appendix to the ‘Nota’, was ‘230 scudi’ (Moreno Sforzini 1987, pp. 350, 361). In 1832, Antonio Nibby mentioned both sculptures in their current location, Room VII (Nibby 1832, p. 120).

The sphinx is displayed as a pendant to another, larger one (inv. CCXI), which is also mentioned in the ‘Quinta Nota’. What distinguishes the two has been described as follows: ‘la Sfinge antica, oggi Inv. CCIV, è riconoscibile da quella moderna, perché è detta di minor grandezza e per i particolari integrati’ (‘the ancient Sphinx, now Inv. CCIV, can be distinguished from the modern one because it is smaller in size and for the restored details’; Moreno, Sforzini 1987, p. 363). Other scholars have doubted the authenticity of both works. Nibby considered them both ‘moderno lavoro imitate però dall’antico’ (‘modern however in imitation of the antique’; 1832, p. 120) as did Platner (1854, p. 255). Venturi believed only the larger one was modern, holding it to have been carved based on a design by the architect Luigi Canina (Venturi 1893, p. 44), a theory supported by De Rinaldis (1948, p. 30) and Della Pergola (1951, p. 20). Faldi, who accepted the attribution to Canina, observed, however, that the theory is not supported by any documentation (Faldi 1954, pp. 44–45).

The present Sphinx, the smaller of the two, is portrayed hunkered down, its front legs stretched out in front and its back ones folded under its massive body, with its tail wrapped around its right hip. The incised claws are clearly visible in the paws. Its head, which is like that of a woman, is erect and covered by a fabric headdress called a nemes decorated with parallel horizontal stripes, coming down in two bands over the chest. In the middle of the forehead there is a contorted serpent called a uraeus, which was an emblem of supreme power and used to decorate the head coverings of divinities and Pharaohs. The Sphinx’s clearly defined, large eyes are elongated in shape. Its other features include a large nose and a slightly open mouth with just a hint of a smile, the corners turned upward. The soft carving and smoothness of the surface enhance the powerful musculature.

The sculpture is a Roman exemplar of an iconographic type that imitated Egyptian models, with a female head and crouching lion’s body.

The history of the iconographic motif of the Sphinx dates back thousands of years to ancient Egypt, where it was a symbol of the Pharaoh’s power and his earthly manifestation. From there, it spread to the Near East and then throughout the Mediterranean basin, acquiring a funerary and chthonic role, especially in Greece and Etruria. In ancient Rome, after Octavian’s victory at Actium in 31 CE and the annexation of Egypt into the Roman Empire, a decorative genre evocative of Egyptian figures and themes spread through Rome, adapted to Imperial power (Capriotti Vittozzi 2006). Egyptophilia often coincided with the ruling emperor’s desire to consolidate his power through theocratic grandeur in the Eastern style. This is attested by the numerous temples that sprouted up in the capital, including the famed Iseum Campense in Campo Marzio. This was probably the original location of the Sphinxes in the Capitoline Museum (Agnoli 2010, pp. 72–77, no. 1), the Lancellotti Collection (Vigna 2008, pp. 239–240, nos. 80–81) and the Louvre (Martinez 2004, pp. 724–725, fig. p. 724, nos. 1507–1509).

Giulia Ciccarello