A critical sensation at the 1864 Paris Salon, this painting established Moreau as a key forerunner of French Symbolism. Directing a response to Ingres's 1808 Neoclassical canvas, Moreau shifted the myth from intellectual distance to an intense psycho-erotic confrontation. The composition frames the encounter as an existential duality between mind (Oedipus) and fatal instinct (the Sphinx). Stylistically, it fuses Mantegna's linear precision, Mannerist elegance, and dense jewel-like surface detail, laying the iconographic groundwork for the Decadent movement.