Céphale et Aurore

Poussin was a Frenchman who spent almost his whole career in Rome, steeping himself in ancient poetry and sculpture, and around 1630 he painted this scene from Ovid. Aurora, goddess of the dawn, has fallen for a mortal hunter named Cephalus and holds on to him at daybreak. He pulls away. He is turned toward a small portrait, held up by a winged cupid, of his wife Procris, whom he will not leave. In the orange sky behind them you can just make out the sun god Apollo setting his chariot off across the morning. Anyone who knew the tale would have felt the shadow over it, because Cephalus later kills Procris by accident while hunting, mistaking her in the undergrowth for game.