Third Intermediate Period, Dynasty 21–22, about 984–715 BCE
Artist:
Egyptian
About this artwork
The creature here combines a ferocious lion’s body with a king’s head to form a divine guardian called a sphinx. Small metal sphinxes like this one were affixed to barques (boats) that carried the cult statues of gods and goddesses when they were brought out of their temples during religious festivals. Here, two rearing cobras flank the sphinx’s paws to help it ward off threats to the deity whose statue was set in a shrine at the center of the barque, shielded from view.
Date
Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.
Gift of Henry H. Getty, Charles L. Hutchinson, and Robert H. Fleming
Reference Number
1894.257
IIIF Manifest
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Thomas George Allen, A Handbook of the Egyptian Collection (Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago, 1923), pp. 106-107 (ill.).
Günther Roeder, Ägyptische Bronzefiguren (Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, 1956), p. 368, §482b, fig. 516, p. 390, §522b, p. 421, §580h, pp. 449-50, §614c.
Roberta Casagrande-Kim, ed., When the Greeks Ruled Egypt: From Alexander the Great to Cleopatra. Exh. cat. (New York: Institute for the Study of the Ancient World; Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014), p. 104, cat. 126.
“Art Institute of Chicago, Ancient Art Galleries, Gallery 154A, April 20, 1994 - February 6, 2012.
Art Institute of Chicago, When the Greeks Ruled: Egypt After Alexander the Great, October 31, 2013 - July 27, 2014; traveled to New York, NY, Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, October 8, 2014 - January 4, 2015.
Art Institute of Chicago, Life and Afterlife in Ancient Egypt, Feb. 11, 2022 - present.
The Art Institute of Chicago, acquired in 1894; price reimbursed by Henry H. Getty, Charles L. Hutchinson, and Robert H. Fleming.
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