PARIS
Paris (Πάρις)
Unchanged by any teller — how the centuries since have seen Paris.
The Judgement of Paris
Peter Paul Rubens, c. 1632-1635
Oil painting by Peter Paul Rubens, now in the National Gallery, London. Seated with Mercury at his side, the shepherd-prince of Mount Ida is about to award the golden apple — the prize of beauty thrown by Strife — to Venus, while Juno and Minerva await his fateful verdict; the choice will win him Helen and doom Troy.
The Loves of Paris and Helen
Jacques-Louis David, 1788
Oil painting by Jacques-Louis David, commissioned by the comte d'Artois, the future Charles X, and now in the Louvre, Paris. Paris, lyre in hand, draws Helen to him in his chamber — the lovers of the third book of the Iliad, where Aphrodite spirits Paris away from his duel with Menelaus and brings Helen to him.
The Judgement of Paris
Enrique Simonet, 1904
Oil painting by the Spanish artist Enrique Simonet, now in the Museo de Málaga. Under the trees of Mount Ida, Hera, Athena and Aphrodite present themselves before Paris, who sits at the right in his herdsman's skins among his grazing flock, weighing the judgement that ancient tradition made the seed of the Trojan War.