Gustave Moreau · 1864

Oedipus and the Sphinx

Posters from $15.00 CAD · Canvas from $39.00 CAD

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The young hero face-to-face with the woman-headed lion at the gates of Thebes — Moreau's first Salon success, jewel-coloured and frozen. The Met.

Up to 12 × 24 in · portrait

Size

Larger sizes are unavailable for this painting because the source scan's resolution wouldn't print at gallery quality.

Format & finish

Archival cotton canvas stretched over a wooden frame. Ready to hang as-is. No external frame.

Scale next to a 5'10" person

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Hand-printed in Ottawa

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Materials & quality

›Canvas & inks

Giclée-printed on archival cotton canvas with fade-resistant pigment inks, hand-stretched over wooden bars. Gallery-wrapped — ready to hang with no extra frame needed.

›Floater frame

Hand-finished solid wood floater frame in five finishes. The canvas sits inside with a clean shadow gap — the way galleries hang contemporary canvas.

›Posters

Premium archival paper — 200 gsm soft matte or 230 gsm vibrant glossy. Ships flat or rolled, ready for your own frame.

›Faithful to the source

Printed from the highest-resolution museum and archive scans available. Each painting's maximum size is capped at what its source scan can support at gallery quality.

About this painting

The story of Oedipus and the Sphinx

Oedipus and the Sphinx is an 1864 oil on canvas painting by Gustave Moreau that was first exhibited at the French Salon of 1864 where it was an immediate success. It is now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The work was a fresh treatment of the established subject of the meeting between Oedipus and the Sphinx on the road outside Thebes, as described in Sophocles's play Oedipus Rex.

Adapted from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

About the artist

Gustave Moreau

Gustave Moreau was a French artist and an important figure in the Symbolist movement. Jean Cassou called him "the Symbolist painter par excellence". He was an influential forerunner of symbolism in the visual arts in the 1860s, and at the height of the symbolist movement in the 1890s, he was among the most significant painters. Art historian Robert Delevoy wrote that Moreau "brought symbolist polyvalence to its highest point in Jupiter and Semele." He was a prolific artist who produced over 15,000 paintings, watercolors, and drawings. Moreau painted allegories and traditional biblical and mythological subjects favored by the fine art academies. J. K. Huysmans wrote, "Gustave Moreau has given new freshness to dreary old subjects by a talent both subtle and ample: he has taken myths worn out by the repetitions of centuries and expressed them in a language that is persuasive and lofty, mysterious and new." The female characters from the Bible and mythology that he so frequently depicted came to be regarded by many as the archetypical symbolist woman. His art fell from favor and received little attention in the early 20th century but, beginning in the 1960s and 70s, he has come to be considered among the most paramount of symbolist painters.

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Biography adapted from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Frequently asked

Oedipus and the Sphinx— questions & answers

›What is the story behind Oedipus and the Sphinx?

The painting shows the moment Oedipus confronts the Sphinx on the road outside Thebes — the winged monster who killed travellers unable to answer her riddle. The subject comes from the Oedipus myth dramatised in Sophocles's play Oedipus Rex.

›Where is Moreau's Oedipus and the Sphinx?

Gustave Moreau painted it in 1864 and first exhibited it at the Paris Salon of 1864, where it was an immediate success. The original is now held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Pairs well with