Aurora (Reni)

L'Aurora (Aurora) is a large Baroque ceiling fresco painted in 1614 by Guido Reni for the Casino, or garden house, adjacent to the Palazzo Pallavicini-Rospigliosi, in Rome.

The casino and the paintings were commissioned by the Cardinal Scipione Borghese, a prominent art patron, and designed by Giorgio Vasanzio and Carlo Maderno, and the rear overlooks the Piazza del Quirinale in Rome.

It is displayed within a painted frame or quadro riportato and depicts from right to left, Aurora (Dawn) in a golden billowing dress with her garlands flying over a dim-lit landscape, leading a blond Apollo in his horse-drawn chariot, surrounded by a chain of female "hours", bringing light to the world.

One interpretation of the work is that the incorporated heraldic symbols were meant to link the patron Scipione with Apollo, his patronage bringing "light to the darkness".

[1] The chariot procession recalls the central fresco in The Loves of the Gods, painted by Annibale Carracci in the Farnese Palace, which depicts the Triumph of Bacchus and Ariadne; however, here there is far more classical sobriety in a restricted number of figures, with little emotion, without overemphasizing muscular anatomy, and hearkening beyond mannerism back to a high-renaissance restraint.