Aurora and Cephalus

François Boucher had just come back from several years in Italy when he painted this in 1733, a young artist making his name with exactly the light, airy mythology that would define French taste under Louis XV. It shows the dawn goddess Aurora drawing the darkness back from the mortal hunter Cephalus, a story from Ovid, and it was made as one of a pair for a lawyer's town house in Paris. Its later travels are the odd part. In 1801 the painting was chosen to help decorate the château of Lunéville in Lorraine for the signing of a peace treaty between France and Austria, and afterwards it was left in the region for good. It has belonged to the museum in nearby Nancy ever since.