Napoleon Bonaparte Before the Sphinx (by Gérôme) Ceramic Tile

This design features a painting by the French artist Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824–1904), who worked in a classic style now known as academicism. It depicts the the French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte in Egypt during the military expedition that he led there. It is a romanticized image of Napoleon on horseback as is awestruck by the grandeur and the beauty of the ancient Egyptian Great Sphinx of Giza, which is a limestone statue of a reclining sphinx, a mythical creature with the head of a human and the body of a lion. The painting is also known as "Oedipus", evoking the ancient Greek myth of Oedipus and the Sphinx. The original artwork was painted by Jean-Léon Gérôme in 1886.