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Alfred Stevens
Belgian, 1823–1906
The Parisian Sphinx
c. 1880
An elegantly dressed young woman looks straight at us and coquettishly adjusts her furs with a gloved hand, her shadowy face giving her an air of mystery. The painting’s title, The Parisian Sphinx, connects this beautiful, seductive woman with the mythical creature––half human, half lion––that destroyed those who were unable to solve its riddles.
Image Caption
Alfred Stevens, The Parisian Sphinx, c. 1880, oil on panel. Clark Art Institute, 1955.863
Medium
oil on panel
Dimensions
10 3/4 x 6 11/16 in. (27.3 x 17 cm)
Object Number
1955.863
Acquisition
Acquired by Sterling and Francine Clark before 1955
Status
On View
Select Bibliography
Paris: Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux-Arts, Quai Malaquais.. Exposition de l'Oeuvre d'Alfred Stevens.". Feb. 6-27, 1900.. Camille Lemonnier.. Alfred Stevens et son Oeuvre suivi des Impressions sur la Peinture par Alfred Stevens.. Brussels: G. van Oest.. 1906.. Gustav Vanzype.. Les Frères Stevens.. Brussels: Nouvelle Société d'Editions.. 1936.. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute.. Exhibit Thirteen: Alfred Stevens, Belgian, 1823-1906.. August 1960.. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. List of Paintings in the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1970. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. List of Paintings in the Sterling & Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1972. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. List of Paintings in the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1984. Kern, Steven, ed. List of Paintings in the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1992. Interventions: Griselda Pollock Looks at Alfred Stevens, Oct. 21, 2000-April 8, 2001. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 2000. Published in conjunction with the exhibition of the same name, shown at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Lees, Sarah, ed. Nineteenth-Century European Paintings at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute; New Haven and London: distributed by Yale University Press, 2012.
Provenance
Paul du Toict, Brussels (by 1900–after 1907); [Knoedler, Paris, sold to Clark, 14 Sept. 1928]; Robert Sterling Clark (1928–55); Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1955.