Historic Picture – The Mythical Sphinx

Image courtesy of Charles Latham and Country Life Picture Library

The above picture, which was published by Country Life in April 1901, shows an ivy-engulfed statue of a mythical sphinx in the Gardens. This is one of two stone sphinxes which were installed in the Gardens at the rear of the House by Lord Burlington in the 1730s. A pair of sphinxes can also be found on top of the gate piers at the front of the House, replacing a pair which were moved from Chiswick House to central London in the nineteenth century, and which are now located in Green Park at the Piccadilly entrance.