Aurora by John Gibson, RA 1790-l866. 1842. Marble, 172.8 cm. Amgueddfa Cymru Caerdydd [National Museum of Wales, Cardiff]. Accession Number: NMW A 2527. Purchased with assistance from the Art Fund, 1993. The Museum's label explains that “Aurora is the goddess of the dawn.Gibson wrote that she has “one foot on the waves, the other softly touching the eath. She is clad in a rich and transparent vest, her delicate limbs are unrestrained and free. . . Aurora has filled the two vases with pure dew from the sea, an as she scatters the pearly drops over the earth whereby the flowers are refreshed.” The museum website adds that “Henry Sandbach, a Liverpool merchant, visited Rome in 1838. There his wife Margaret, a granddaughter of William Roscoe, the Liverpool collector and early patron of Gibson, became a close friend of the sculptor. The Sandbach family later built a gallery in their new house, Hafodunos, to display their Gibson sculpture. In 1842 Henry Sandbach commissioned this figure for his wife.”
Related Material
- Side view against a dark background
- Detail (head)
- James Kincaid's discussion of Tennyson's poem “Tithonus” in which Aurora appears
Photograph by the National Museum of Wales, which retains copyright. formatting by George P. Landow. Readers of the Victorian Web may wish to visit the Museum website.]
Last modified 18 February 2012