Aurora

Artemisia Gentileschi painted Aurora around 1627, depicting the goddess of dawn in the tradition of mythological ceiling or overdoor paintings in which divine figures are shown in ascending or descending motion. Aurora — whose daily journey preceded and announced the sun — was a popular allegorical subject for the ceilings and overdoors of aristocratic palaces, her upward movement creating compositions suited to architectural integration. Artemisia's Aurora shows the richer coloring and warmer palette of her Florentine period, the goddess depicted in flowing drapery against the dawn sky with the physical presence and directness of gaze she brought to all her female figures, divine or mortal.

The luminous figure of Aurora is rendered with rich, warm colors and dynamic movement, the goddess's flowing drapery and the brightening sky creating a sense of celestial dawn.