Nathaniel Hone the Younger, Irish, 1831-1917
Title: The Sphinx
Date: 1892
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions:
63 x 92 cm
Credit Line: Bequeathed, Mrs Hone, The Artist's Widow, 1919 (Accessioned 1951)
Object Number: NGI.1434
Exhibition HistoryRoyal Hibernian Academy, Dublin, 1893
N. Hone Bequested Exhibition, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, 1921
The East. Imagined, Experienced and Remembered, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, 1988
Nathaniel Hone the Younger 1831-1917, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, 19 June - 4 August 1991
N. Hone Bequested Exhibition, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, 1921
The East. Imagined, Experienced and Remembered, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, 1988
Nathaniel Hone the Younger 1831-1917, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, 19 June - 4 August 1991
Label TextWith his wife Magdalen, Hone made an extended tour of the Mediterranean and Egypt in 1891-92, revelling in both the subjects those regions offered and the intense sunlight effects that he could observe there. He visited many of Egypt’s celebrated antiquities, including the Sphinx at Giza, painting some of them several times. Unlike many Western artists who travelled to North Africa in the nineteenth century, Hone concerned himself with archaeological and topographical detail rather than figurative subjects. The figures with a donkey here provide scale as much as embellishment.