The Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp (KMSKA), one of Belgium's premier cultural institutions established in 1810, houses a pencil sketch titled Sphinx, Inventory No. 3257/25, by the Belgian artist Paul Joostens (1889-1960), whose diverse career encompassed multiple artistic movements of the early 20th century.

This artwork depicts the sphinx, a mythological creature with ancient origins in Egyptian tradition that was later adopted and transformed in Greek mythology. Typically represented with the body of a lion and the head of a human (usually female in Greek depictions), the sphinx embodied mystery, riddles, and the boundary between the known and unknown realms of knowledge.

Joostens's approach to this mythological subject would have been informed by his multifaceted artistic development. Trained at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, he began with Cubist paintings before becoming associated with Dadaism and abstraction, collaborating with avant-garde figures like poet Paul van Ostaijen. In the mid-1920s, he developed what he called his "Gothic Joostens" style, influenced by Flemish Primitive painters like Hans Memling.

His interpretation of the sphinx likely reflects this complex artistic journey, potentially incorporating elements from multiple periods of his stylistic evolution. The sphinx, with its hybrid nature and associations with enigma, would have provided rich symbolic material for an artist known for exploring diverse styles and themes ranging from the experimental to the traditional.

This sketch exemplifies how mythological subjects continued to inspire artistic interpretation throughout modernism, with ancient symbols acquiring new meanings and formal treatments as artists reimagined them through contemporary aesthetic approaches.