Spirit of the Sphinx

Painted in 1875, Spirit of the Sphinx is a work by Henry Bacon, now in the collection of Smithsonian American Art Museum, that reflects the artistic concerns of the late 19th century — an era of fundamental transformation in both the methods and purposes of European and American painting. Henry Bacon was an American painter who spent most of his career in Paris, achieving success at the Salon with a range of subjects from New England genre scenes to Egyptian genre paintings resulting from his travels in North Africa.

Bacon applied paint with careful, controlled brushwork in a naturalistic palette influenced by his Paris training and his Orientalist travels. His subjects range from Egyptian genre scenes to American social situations, each handled with documentary clarity and competent academic organization.