Thorvaldsen’s Allegories : Day and Night
The marble relief roundels, Night and Day, created by the neoclassical artist Bertel Thorvaldsen, are regarded as his greatest works. Thorvaldsen was highly regarded in his lifetime and was even described as the “Patriarch of the bas-relief.” His work was sometimes even considered superior to that of his contemporary Canova.
The reliefs were most likely commissioned by Alexander Baring, 1st Baron Ashburton, in the 1820s and were part of his collection at Grange Park in Hampshire.
Night is depicted as a winged woman in drowsy flight, cradling two putti in her arms. Some believe that the putti in Night represent the children of Morpheus, the Greek god of sleep and dreams, while others think they represent Sleep and Death. The sculptor also adds another symbol of the night, the owl, which flies out of the plane of relief towards the viewer.
Apparently the inspiration for Night came to Thorvaldsen in a dream, and the figure was based on the ancient Greek description of Night from Pausanias’ Periegesis Hellados. It is said that one of Thorvaldsen’s friends, the Danish painter Wilhelm Eckersberg, was the one who found the sculptor sketching an image that he felt had been revealed to him during a restless night.
Day takes the form of a young woman scattering roses with a putto holding a torch symbolizing dawn. The contrast between the roses and the torch creates an illusion of light and dark, day and night.
Day merges Baroque traditions with Neoclassical advancements, and the figure of the woman was inspired by Guido Reni’s Aurora and Fortune being restrained by Love.
The present relief of Day differs ever so slightly from the original plaster, principally in the drapery around the woman’s proper right leg, which, in the present marble, overlaps the leg, whereas in the original it goes over and under.
The 3D models of both reliefs can be downloaded on Scan the World under a CC0 license.
