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At the exterior entrance of the National Archaeological Museum, in Madrid, flanked by the stairs, there are two female sphinxes. They are two emblematic sculptures that, however, have not had the recognition they deserve. Today, they are protagonists in Las Fotos de los Lectores de La Vanguardia.
As María Ángeles Granados Ortega, from the Modern Age Department of the National Archaeological Museum, explains, the new stage that began in 2014 with the reopening of this building, “the bronze sphinxes that flank its historic access continue to exert a powerful attraction on visitors.”
They were restored but, until that moment, almost a decade ago now, they had not received “the attention they deserve as notable works by Felipe Moratilla Parreto, a sculptor from Madrid who established himself in Rome during his professional activity.”
The placement of sphinxes at the east entrance of the Palace of the National Library and Museums was designed by Antonio Ruiz de Salces, an architect who, starting in 1886, directed the construction of the building, begun in 1866 by Francisco Jareño y Alarcón. Ceased this in 1882, Ruiz de Salces continued the work.
Granados Ortega details that, in the elevations of his project, “the general decoration of the exterior of the palace was established with Egyptian statues, medallions and sphinxes, in this case placed on the podiums of the staircase leading to the palace from Serrano street, by then not yet chosen as an exclusive entrance to the National Archaeological Museum”.
The decoration of one of the entrances to the building with Egyptian sphinxes “was a valid option due to its traditional monumental use, although scarce in Spain, which had an antecedent close to the Museum: the Egyptian Fountain of the Canopic God, built between 1819 and 1850. in the Retiro park according to the project of Isidro González Velázquez, a whim or decorative monument in neo-Egyptian style”.
On any of the facades of the Palace of the National Library and Museums, “this type of sphinx would have evoked the function traditionally attributed to those that flank the avenues of Egyptian temples.” In this case, “they would have guarded the access to a temple of knowledge.”
