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The Kiss of the Sphinx 1895
Franz von Stuck (German, 1863-1928)
Szépmüészeti Můzeum, Budapest, Hungary
Locked in a passionate kiss, the sphinx presses her lips against the man's like a vampire, as if to suck the life out of him. It was Heinrich Heine’s poem in the foreward to his Buch der Lieder of 1839 that inspired Stuck to paint this triumph of woman over man.
'The marble image came alive,
Began to moan and plead -
She drank my burning kisses up
With ravenous thirst and greed.
She drank the breath from out my breast,
She fed lust without pause;
She pressed me tight, and tore and rent
My body with her claws.'
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