Oktober 2014 ‘An arm support for the Nile’ presentatie op SECAC congress, Session: Forging Art Historical Connections in Egyptology, Sarasota FL
Abstract:
An arm support for the Nile: the pharaonic sphinx from stolen monument to keeper of ancient wisdom.
30 BC.: with Cleopatra defeated, Egypt was conquered. To celebrate his victory, emperor August brought at least seven sphinx sculptures to Rome. It marked the start of a trend: in an egyptianizing style, copies were made after the original prototypes. This paper shall reconsider the sphinx in Rome and its reception in 16th and 17th century painting.
After centuries it caused a thrill when antiquities were unearthed in the Renaissance. Painters added sphinx sculptures to their capriccios of Roman architecture. And when the finding of Moses in the river Nile was depicted, the painters clarified the Egyptian location by a sphinx, high on its plinth. The male creature transformed to a female beauty with an inviting décolleté.
A different step was made by Rafael who discovered an original Roman sculpture of the river Nile resting on its arm support in the form of a sphinx. He animated the pair and incorporated them between the divine habitants of the Olympus. This state of sphinxes as real living beings was further explored by Nicolas Poussin in his five versions of Moses: from an identifying attribute, the sphinx now developed to an autonomous creature that represented the ancient wisdom of Egypt.