1860s
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The Questioner of the Sphinx
Painting · Elihu Vedder
Vedder's The Questioner of the Sphinx (1863) is a key American Symbolist work, a lone figure pressing his ear to the lips of the half-buried Egyptian sphinx for an answer that will not come.Crosses Sy
Tristithea·6/27/2026
Oedipus and the Sphinx
Oil on canvas · Gustave Moreau
Gustave Moreau exhibited Oedipus and the Sphinx at the Paris Salon of 1864, and it made his reputation. The painting fixes the moment from Greek myth when Oedipus confronts the Sphinx outside Thebes,
Tristithea·6/20/2026
Don Quixote (Doré illustration)
Engraving · Gustave Doré
From the 1863 illustrated edition of Cervantes's Don Quixote, this Doré engraving shows Don Quixote in his library surrounded by chivalric romances, the books that have driven his imagination into the
Tristithea·5/28/2026
