Self-Portrait (Inn of the Dawn Horse)

Self-Portrait (Inn of the Dawn Horse) is a painting executed by artist Leonora Carrington and is currently in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

[6] Self-Portrait features an interior space consisting of two walls meeting at a corner, a ceiling, a tiled floor, and an ornately curtained window that reveals a lush, green forest view and a white horse galloping in the distance.

Horses, in Carrington's work, appeared frequently and as early as 1929; they represented an aspect of her animal self as symbols of freedom and liberty.

The white rocking horse floating above Carrington is most likely a reference to Pénélope, a play Carrington wrote about a young girl who is in love with her rocking horse Tartarus (or Tartar as he is known in the French version)[8] The inclusion of the hyena may suggest an "intrusion of the wild into a domestic space," which Carrington is ultimately aligning herself with as noted by her gesture towards the female hyena and their mirrored stares towards the viewer.

"[10] At the beginning of World War II, Carrington left the painting with German artist Max Ernst, who took it to New York in 1941.