Postcard Gustave Moreau - Oedipus and the Sphinx, Musee du Luxembourg Paris, LL nr. 476

Museum postcard with a sepia reproduction of "Oedipe et le Sphinx" by French Symbolist painter Gustave Moreau (1826-1898), published by LL (Lévy et ses Fils) in Paris under number 476. The painting — one of Moreau's most celebrated works — depicts Oedipus confronting the Sphinx, who clings to him as he meets her gaze without flinching. The card cites the Musée du Luxembourg in Paris as the source, where the work was displayed during the period when that museum housed the French state art collection. The reverse is unused and blank, with light age-related staining.

Gustave Moreau completed "Oedipe et le Sphinx" in 1864 and submitted it to the Salon of that year, where it caused an immediate sensation. The confrontation between the rational hero and the enigmatic monster was read by contemporaries as an allegory of the relationship between reason and instinct, between the human and the inhuman. The work is now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. LL museum postcards from this period are printed using a high-quality engraving reproduction technique that faithfully renders the tonality of the original.