Aurora is a c.1625-1627 painting by the Italian artist Artemisia Gentileschi, depicting the Roman goddess of dawn.

[1] In Roman mythology, the goddess Aurora rises every morning to signal the arrival of the Sun by coloring the sky, which was used in the period as a metaphor for creativity and beauty.

[1] Her contemporary Pierre Dumonstier created a drawing of Artemisia's hand holding a brush which refers to the "hands of Aurora",[2] praising both her beauty as well as her skill as a colorist.

[3] The painting passed through the Arrighetti family before arriving on the art market in Florence in 1974.

[4] Bissell believes the patron was Niccolò Arrighetti, associate of Michelangelo Buonarroti,[5] who had commissioned Gentileschi to paint Allegory of Inclination a decade earlier.