Although their inspiration ultimately lies with the Great Sphinx at Giza, these chenets are more directly related to the sphinxes of the Pharaohs Nepherites I (399-393 B.C.) and Hakoris (393-380 B.C.), which were displayed in Rome at the Capitol in 1513, before their removal to the Villa Borghese and, ultimately, to the Louvre with Napoleon's spoils in 1807. With their 'Nemes' inspired headdress and unusual incline of the head, they relate to two designs attributed to the sculptor Nicolas Coustou (1658-1733), reputedly for lead sphinxes which stood on the terrace of the Royal Pavilion at Marly, now in the Cabinet of Drawings at the Stockholm Museum. It is, therefore, of interest to note that Coustou, who moved to Paris to live with his uncle Coysevox in 1676, was a pensionnaire of King Louis XIV in Rome between 1683 and 1686.

A pair of chenets of this model, the shields emblazoned with the Bavarian Royal arms, is in the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich (illustrated in H. Ottomeyer, P. Pröschel et al., Vergoldete Bronzen, Munich, 1986, pp. 70-71, 1.10.10). Further pairs of this model are in the châteaux de Vaux-Le-Vicomte, Champs and Chantilly.