Aurora Riding in Her Chariot
1754–1817
Medium
Pen and brown ink, brush and brown wash, over black chalk
Dimensions
7-3/8 x 11-7/16 in. (18.8 x 29.0 cm)
Classification
Drawings
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Purchase, General Atlantic Corporation and Christina Turčić Latrowski. Gifts, in memory of Lawrence Turčić, 1988
Accession Number
1988.150
Tags
Art Historical Context
Behold *Aurora Riding in Her Chariot*, a delicate preparatory drawing by the Italian neoclassical artist Andrea Appiani (1754–1817). Capturing the Roman goddess of dawn in dynamic motion, Aurora hurtles across the sky in her horse-drawn chariot, embodying the classical myth of the break of day. Appiani, renowned for his elegant frescoes adorning Milan’s royal palaces and Napoleonic commissions, infused this scene with the poised grace and heroic scale of Neoclassicism, a movement reviving ancient Greek and Roman ideals amid Europe’s Enlightenment fervor. Crafted in pen and brown ink with brus...