The Sphinx

I've stumbled upon another painting.  Not something that is as striking to me as yesterday's Lady Violet but nevertheless interesting.

oh hai.

Sphinx in the Desert, Marcus Waterman 1872

Looks a little different from the ol cat that we know now.  This is a prime example of Artistic License.  About 21% of people, myself included up until recently are under the impression that Napoleon shot the nose off of the Sphinx.  Target practice if you will.  This is false.  The nose has apparently been missing since around 1378 where a person by the name of Muhammad Sa'im al-Dahr broke it off because he found locals offering tributes to the Sphinx hoping for a better harvest.  He broke it off and was hung for his monumental rhinoplasty.

This means that when Marcus painted this picture it was more a flight of fancy than a representation of an actual observable figure.  However we have to take into account what we actually see in the painting.  There is nothing in there that says that it was supposed to be a current representation.  Yes, the Sphinx was covered in sand up to the neck in 1870, there are plenty of photos backing that up but presumably, since it has been around for thousands of years I imagine there are several periods of history where it has just been a head sticking out of the sand.

I doubt Marcus had heard of al-Dahr though when he painted this.