Fragment of an Ivory Plaque: Wings and Hindquarters of a Sphinx
Unknown · Neo-Assyrian period, eighth century BC
Of a sphinx facing the viewer, only the spread wings and the hindquarters remain on this fragment, under nine centimetres long. The feathers are carved as overlapping rows, each quill marked, and the haunch and tail of the lion body curve away to the right. The museum classifies the creature as a sphinx of Syrian type with a human head seen full face, though the head itself is gone. Imagine the missing front: a human face staring out between the wings, like the sphinx heads on other plaques in this case.
Sphinxes guarded thrones and beds in the Near East as they guarded temples in Egypt, and ivory furniture from Syria and Phoenicia is full of them, sometimes with human heads, sometimes with the heads of rams or falcons. The fragment was found in room fourteen of the Building of the Ivories at Arslan Tash, ancient Hadatu in northern Syria, in the 1928 excavations led by François Thureau-Dangin, and it came to the Louvre through the partage of 1929.
Did You Know? The face that once stared out between these wings has vanished, leaving a winged lion body without its most striking feature.
Unlock the Full Guide
Read every room and listen to every work in all museums with premium.