Night, [from the original of 1815]

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TitleNight, [from the original of 1815]

Artist Albert Bertel Thorvaldsen (Danish, 1770 - 1844)

Daten.d.

MediumPlaster

DimensionsDiameter: 30 1/2 in. (77.5 cm)

Credit LineNational Academy of Design, New York, NY

Object number108-S

Label TextThis round carved relief was conceived as half of a pair, the corresponding relief representing Day (Aurora), and together they were among Thorwaldsen's most popular works. They were replicated and copied many times in plaster and marble, both during the artist's lifetime and after his death, and were further known through full-size engravings of them.
According to J. M. Thiele, Thorwaldsen modeled the pair in Rome in 1815 under the influence of the expatriate Danish painter Asmus-Jacob Carstens who had included the theme in several of his works. Depicted here is Nox (or Nyx), the winged goddess of night, wearing a wreath of poppies and floating in the air as she holds her two children, Death and Sleep, in her arms. The relief was originally modeled without the owl which, according to Thiele, Thorwaldsen added at the suggestion of the plasterer.
This relief appears to be one of those acquired by the Academy in the first half of the nineteenth century, probably as part of the group purchased in 1839 or that donated in 1842 (see above). At the time, it was almost certainly accompanied by a cast of its companion, the relief of Day.