Head from a Female Sphinx

This colossal head can be recognized as coming from a sphinx because her hairdo extends horizontally at the back, where it rested along the lion's body. Her modest hair decoration suggests that the woman was a princess rather than a queen. The damages to her face, including the removal of her inlaid eyes, probably occurred before the head left Egypt. In Rome, it was apparently part of Emperor Hadrian's large collection of Egyptian art. The repairs, made with stone taken from the interior of the head, may have been made in the eighteenth century, when the head was in the collection of Cardinal Alessandro Albani in Rome.