# The Sphinx, or The Caresses [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [KHNOPFF, Fernand]() - Date: 1851-1900 - Technique: Oil on canvas, 51 x 151 cm ## Commentary A theme of temptation seems to be the subject of Caresses, in which a semi-nude androgynous figure resists a female-headed leopard. The striking and provocative image suggests the struggle of artistic idealism against sensual temptation. The many sphinx \(a winged monster having a woman's head and a lion's body\) figures in Khnopff's work are not allegories; as Mallarmé interprets them, they are "ideas" of the senses. ## Related artworks - [After Flaubert. The Temptation of St Anthony \(detail\)]() - [After Flaubert. The Temptation of St Anthony]() - [Hortensia]() - [I lock my door upon myself]() - [Listening to Schumann]() - [Mask of a Young Englishwoman]() - [Memoires]() - [Portrait of Marguerite Khnopff]() - [Still water \(The Menil pond\)]() - [The Game Warden]() - [The Offering]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()