Tomb with Death Enthroned as a Sphinx

ca. 1779–84

Dating: Approximate date range
Held at: The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Medium: Etching and aquatint, printed in brown ink, ii/ii
Dimensions: Sheet: 13 1/4 x 19 7/16 in. (33.7 x 49.3 cm)
Collection no.: 2012.189
Attribution: By the artist
Image rights: CC0 1.0License details

Louis-Jean Desprez. Tomb with Death Enthroned as a Sphinx. Louis-Jean Desprez; The Metropolitan Museum of Art; Purchase, Janet Lee Kadesky Ruttenberg Fund, in honor of Colta Ives, 2012. CC0 1.0 (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/). Full-frame proportional resize and JPEG compression.

Collection: The Metropolitan Museum of Art

About this artwork

Tomb with Death Enthroned as a Sphinx — Louis-Jean Desprez. ca. 1779–84.

Medium: Etching and aquatint, printed in brown ink, ii/ii. Dimensions: Sheet: 13 1/4 x 19 7/16 in. (33.7 x 49.3 cm).

Collection record: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Museum connection according to this source; current display unverified.

Credit line: Purchase, Janet Lee Kadesky Ruttenberg Fund, in honor of Colta Ives, 2012.

This is a museum catalogue record, not a current-display assertion.

Source: official collection record. Metadata selected and normalized by Artline from the source export, accessed 10 September 2026; no museum endorsement. Reproduction rights are separate.

Location checked Sep 10, 2026. This does not indicate whether the work is on display.

Artwork sources

Image source