FRENCH NEOCLASSICAL SCHOOL, CIRCA 1810 | AURORA AND CEPHALUS

Private collection, Austria.

This painting depicts Cephalus, son of Hermes and Herse, who in Greek mythology was beloved by the goddess of Dawn (Eos or Aurora), and was carried off by her to live on Mount Olympus.¹ Within the width of the canvas, the artist has achieved a dramatic yet graceful transition from the clear, bright light of Dawn, to the starry darkness of the night sky, the putto and horses' eyes turning towards the viewer with a certain knowingness, their faces illuminated by the burning torch. 

Comparisons between this painting and the work of Charles Paul Landon (1761–1826), Étienne-Jean Delécluze (1781–1863) and Joseph-François Ducq (1762–1829) have been drawn, but the identity of its author is as yet unknown. We are grateful to Mehdi Korchane and Denis Coekelberghs for respectively dating the work to circa 1810, on the basis of digital images.

¹ Later, in Book 7 of Metamorphoses, Ovid conflated this Cephalus with Cephalus, son of Deion, king of Phocis, and husband of Procris, daughter of King Erechtheus of Athens, whose love of hunting aroused jealous suspicion in his wife. When she emerged suddenly from a bush, having hidden in order to spy on her husband, Procris was fatally struck by Cephalus, who mistook her for his prey.