apokalyptische Tiere
Apokalyptische Tiere stand at Munich’s Nordfriedhof as two unusual sphinxes with lion bodies and rooster heads. Their setting is one of Munich’s largest cemeteries, founded in 1884 and designed by Hans Grässel with a chapel and burial wall.
Created in the late 1890s, the sculptures guarded the cemetery entrance until they disappeared in the 1960s. Researchers, the Thomas Mann Forum, stonemasons and students reconstructed them from old photographs, using Kehlheim limestone, and returned them in 2020. Thomas Mann later described the rooster-headed figures in his novella Death in Venice, giving their rare form a place in literary history.
Each reconstructed sphinx measures 1.92 metres long, 62 centimetres wide and 1.7 metres high. A stele between them carries the inscription “Wachet und betet”, meaning “Watch and pray”.
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