The Rising of the Sun
by BOUCHER, François, Oil on canvas, 318 x 261 cm
The companion piece The Setting of the Sun is also in the Wallace Collection.
These extravagant and wonderful pictures show Apollo as God of the Sun leaving Tethys with her Nereids and Tritons in the river Ocean as he drives up the morning sun in his chariot drawn by four white horses, and then returning to her at nightfall. Boucher counted these amongst his most successful pictures.