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| Allerton House - Mansion Pond, Front Terrace (1938?) HGMT 36 neg (1 of 2), University of Illinois Archive RS 31/13/5 Box 6 Negatives |
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| Allerton House - Terrace, Pool Area (1935?) HGMT - 34 neg (1 of 2), University of Illinois Archives RS 31/13/5 Box 6 Negatives |
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| Allerton House - Upper Terrace (1920s) HGMT - 26 neg, University of Illinois Archives RS 31/13/5 Box 6 Negatives |
The Sphinx were designed by John Borie III, Robert Allerton's friend and the architect for Allerton House. They may have been created in the memory of Oscar Wilde, shortly after his death, referencing his poem The Sphinx.
A beautiful and silent Sphinx has watched me through the shifting gloom.
Inviolate and immobile she does not rise she dos not stir
For silver moons are nought to her and nought to her the suns that reel.
...
A thousand weary centuries are thine while I have hardly seen
Some twenty summers cast their green for Autumn's gaudy liveries.
...
Sing to me of that odorous green eve when crouching by the marge
You heard from Adrian's gilded barge the laughter of Antinous
And lapped the stream and fed your drouth and watched with hot and hungry stare
The ivory body of that rare young slave with his pomegranate mouth!
...
When through the purple corridors the screaming scarlet Ibis flew
In terror, and a horrid dew dripped from the moaning Mandragores.
...
Who were your lovers? who were they who wrestled for you in the dust?
Which was the vessel of your Lust? What Leman had you, every day?
...
You kissed his mouth with mouths of flame: you made the horned-god your own:
You stood behind him on his throne: you called him by his secret name.
You whispered monstrous oracles into the caverns of his ears:
With blood of goats and blood of steers you taught him monstrous miracles.
...
The god is scattered here and there: deep hidden in the windy sand
I saw his giant granite hand still clenched in impotent despair.
...
But these, thy lovers, are not dead.
...
Your lovers are not dead, I know. They will rise up and hear thy voice
And clash their cymbals and rejoice and run to kiss your mouth! and so,
Set winds upon your argosies! Set horses to your ebon car!
Back to your Nile! ...
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See, the dawn shivers round the grey gilt-dialled towers, and the rain
Streams down each diamoned pane and blurs with tears the wannish day.
...
What songless tongueless ghost of sin crept through the curtains of the night,
And saw my taper burning bright, and knocked and bade you enter in?
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Get hence, you loathsome misery! Hideous animal, get hence!
You wake in me each bestial sense, you make me what I would not be.
...
Whose pallid burden, sick with pain, watches the world with wearied eyes,
And weeps for every soul that dies, and weeps for every soul in vane.
Oscar Wilde, The Sphinx (1894)
Typically a sphinx would guarding a home, confronting a visitor. Robert had these turned so he could look upon their faces from the Solarium, indicating that the gardens and nature is what is being entered and protected.
Perhaps like Wilde's poem, Robert is questioning the sphinx, asking what they know of history and what might be learned from their experience. Of course, the sphinx is silent. We must rely on our own intuition, considering our questions as our guide.
Oscar Wilde was at the peak of his fame when the poem was published. He would soon be in a legal entanglement with the Marquess of Queensberry, the father of his lover, Lord Alfred (Bosie) Douglas. The trials resulted in Wilde's conviction for gross indecency. He was sentence to two years of hard labor. Wilde was broken by the imprisonment, his loss of reputation and social standing, and related financial losses. He died three years after his release from prison, in 1900, as the mansion was being completed.
Were the sphinx a coded reminder of the risks of challenging social norms? To generally be alert? An invitation to contemplate the enigmas of life?
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| Allerton House - Upper Terrace / Cropped HGMT - 9 neg, University of Illinois Archive RS 31/13/5 Box 6 Negatives |
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