Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1780–1867)
Study for Oedipus and the Sphinx, 1808
Graphite, marked with compass points, and squared for transfer
19 15/16 x 15 3/8 inches (507 x 390 mm)
Gift of the Ian Woodner Family Collection In Honor of the Seventy-fifth Anniversary of the Morgan Library, 1999; 1999.33
This study was executed in 1808 in preparation for
Ingres's pièce réglementaire at the French Academy in
Rome. The finished painting, now in the Musée du
Louvre, was first displayed at the Villa Medici and
then sent to Paris, where it was shown (after some
retouching) in the Salon of 1824. Here, Oedipus, the
king of Thebes, confronts the Sphinx in his quest
for the truth about his birth and fate. In order to
continue on his path, Oedipus must answer a riddle
from this beautiful, but dangerous, repository of
arcane wisdom. The Sphinx asks: "What goes on
four feet, on two feet and three, but the more feet it
goes on the weaker it be?" As indicated by the pile
of bones in the foreground, those who answered
incorrectly were devoured. The clever Oedipus,
however, correctly answered: "Man, who goes on
all fours as an infant and uses a stick in old age."
