A Rare Ancient Egyptian Carved Limestone Sphinx Modelled With a Lions Tail and Paws (747 BC to 332 BC Egypt)

31.00cm wide 23.00cm high 10.50cm deep (12.20 inches wide9.06 inches high4.13 inches deep)

Provenance: reputedly from Alexandria, bought in London in the 1950’s
Ex London Private collection

The Sphinx is a mythical beast most usually portrayed with the body of a lion and the head of a man often wearing the Royal Nemes head cloth as does the Great Sphinx at Giza. Statues of Sphinxes were also sometimes given the heads of rams or hawks, and in one unusual case from the mortuary temple of Amenhotep III (1390 – 1352 BC), a Sphinx was given the tail of a crocodile, perhaps in imitation of a beast associated with one of the Egyptian constellations. Women are rarely represented in the guise of a Sphinx and even Queen Hatshepsut (1473 – 1458 BC) assumed the form in her masculine role as King rather than as a woman.

A Rare Ancient Egyptian Carved Limestone Sphinx Modelled With a Lions Tail and
Paws. The human head dressed with a Royal Nemes head cloth and Uraeus
Late period (747 – 332 BC) probably after 600 BC
Size: 23cm high, 31cm deep, 10.5cm wide – 9 ins high, 12¼ ins deep, 4 ins wide