Liebig Publisher’s Antwerp, ‘Oedipus & the Sphinx’ 1897, lithograph, 16,5 x 11 cm. menu card for Liebig Company, Beef Extract M45
Series of three menu cards (A gift to the guest, as stated on top) depicting the three stages in the riddle of the sphinx. On the top right, backed up by the Liebig meat extract, lies, sits and stands the sphinx, communicating with Oedipus in a tondo. He is pointing to the text under him:
Part 1. (German Menu card): Sph: Wie heisst das Thier: am Morgen geht’s auf Vieren? Oed: Es is das Kind, das noch am Boden kriecht!
Part 2. (French Menu card): Sphinx: Quel est l’animal qui a deux peids a midi? Oedipe: L’homme, qui fierement se tient droit.
Part 3. (English Menu card): Sph: What is that which on three feet at eve doth go? Oed: It is man when old and leaning on his staff.’
The text is confirmed by the three stages in manhood, in a Greek interior and different floral branches relating the ages to spring/summer, autumn and winter
The menus were re-used at the final presentation of my course ‘Babes and Bitches’ were the students cooked a dish based on a female personage from mythology, the bible or history. Here they lay in front of ‘The Sphinx’s battlefield’.
