OedipusSphinx1.0002

Henry Fuseli, "Oedipus Answers the Riddle of the Sphinx. Pen and brown ink with grey wash over graphite. rawing, 1768. 1770-1772 replicat of a 1768 original — Kunsthaus, Zürich, inv. 1940/150. This replica at the British Museum, no. 1885,0314.205, is one of the drawings from the Roman Album, from Fuseli's series on Sophocles' 'Oedipus Tyrannus'.

Fuseli places the famous consultation of the Sphinx in a crowded setting, while successors such as Ingres (1808) and Moreau (1864) place the moment well outside Thebes and without witnesses. Answering the riddle, Oedipus gestures toward the three male individuals in the middle — an infant, an adult, and an elderly man with a crutch. The caption in Greek says "Oedipus, having solved the riddle of the Sphinx and having saved the city, obtains by divine sanction the kingship over Thebes. "ΟΙΔΙΠΟΥΣ ΚΑΤΑΛΕΖΑΣ ΤΟ ΤΗΣ ΣΦΙΝΓΟΣ ΑΙΝΙΓΜΑ ΣΟΣΑΣ ΤΗΝ ΠΟΛΙΝ ΛΑΓΓΧΑΝΕΙ ΣΥΝΕΠΙΑΣΤΙ ΤΗΣ ΤΗΝ ΘΗΒΟΝ ΤΥΡΑΝΝΙΑΣ." (This Greek is not problem-free.)