When visiting the exhibition ‘The Classical Ideal’ in the Teylers Museum in Haarlem, it became obvious a spcific set of sculpture formed the canon of antiquity: Apollo Belvedere, Laocoon and the Farnese Hercules were most popular. But the river gods were present as well. Fauna identified which water was meant: the she wolf suckeling the twins Romulus and Remus represented the river Tiber. The popular Nile was recognizable by the crocodile while resting on a pharaonic sphinx (the male composite creature lying flat on its belly with the royal head dress, the nemes).
The old bearded man personifying a river with its specifying attributes, transformed to individual creatures. Like the opening illustration of an article by Samuel W. Baker (1821-93) on the search of the source the Nile springs from. Here we see the Nile, resting on the water sprouting urn flanked by the crocodile. Behind an ibis, a sphinx lies high on a plinth, the palmtree serves as a parasol.