[4] Ragnar von Holten has argued that the subject depicts not only the battle between good and evil, but also between the sexes, and that the opening poem of Buch der Lieder by Heinrich Heine was the source for the idea of the painting.

Dorra also draws attention to the symbolic meaning of some of the elements in the picture, which could have autobiographical aspects, and the possible derivation of the treatment of the subject from the design of a Bithynian coin of Nicomedes II depicting Zeus leaning on a staff with an eagle on his right.

[5] The intense gaze shared between the two has been seen as characteristic of Moreau "who again and again suggests an ambiguous mirror-image, two aspects, two abstract entities that confront each other and recognize each other all too well".

One critic commented, "Mr. Gustave Moreau is the hero of this Exhibition and the grumblers proclaim that if the Salon of 1864 is retrieved from discredit, it is thanks to Oedipus and the Sphinx".

Critic Paul de Saint-Victor warned that Moreau should extricate himself from the "harsh embrace" of Mantegna in order to realise his full potential.

[9] Maxime du Camp, on the other hand, felt that it more resembled Vittore Carpaccio's St. George and the Dragon (1502), which Moreau had copied in Venice and which also contains the gory remains of conflict.

[11] The painting was first sold by the artist in 1864 to Prince Napoléon Bonaparte, who had a reputation as a discerning connoisseur, and paid a full 8000 francs for the work.

[7] It was then sold in 1868 to Paul Durand-Ruel, and then in the same year to William H. Herriman of Rome[1] who gave it to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1920[12] where it is one of the few important Moreau paintings outside France.