Guillaume Dubufe’s recumbent Cypris, (also known as Aphrodite), is shown languidly reclining on a half shell, her foot gently dipping into the sea. The Goddess of Love is awakened by the rising sun on the horizon with its golden rays reaching to the sky; the start of a new day. This charming painting was the preparatory study for Dubufe’s engraving illustrating the third installment of Victor Hugo’s epic poem, La Légende des siècles, which was published in 1883 (fig. 1).