ParisJudgment1.0043_RaphaelRaimondi

ParisJudgment1.0043_RaphaelRaimondi

Metropolitan Museum site
Apollodorus Library Epitome 3.2
Euripides Helen 1 - 30

Marcantonio Raimondi, ca. 1480-before 1534, after Raphael (Raffaelo Sanzio) 1483-1520, "The Judgment of Paris," engraving for print, ca. 1510-1520, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rogers Fund, no. 19.74.1. (=Bartsch no. 245).

Raphael/Raimondi pack the frame with more gods than normally appear in a Judgment of Paris scene. Besides the judge (Paris w/ Mercury) and the three contestants (Juno, Minerva, and Venus), the artists work in fully developed vignettes of Apollo/Helios, Jupiter and other Olympians, Victory, Castor & Pollux, as well as Ganymede. In the lower right a pair of river numina (gods) and a naiad (reminiscent now of Manet's lunchtime in the grass) complete the frame.

Paris offers the Apple of Discord to Venus, even as Minerva and Juno offer their most persuasive arguments for his reward in the divine beauty contest. Minerva has removed her weapons of defense; Juno's peacock is there; Cupid pesters his mother Venus.

Metropolitan Museum site clarifies what makes this engraving so special: "A masterpiece of Renaissance printmaking, the Judgment of Paris represents a highpoint in the collaboration between the painter Raphael and the great Italian engraver Raimondi." The painting by Raphael is now lost.

OGCMA slides are designed by Roger T. Macfarlane for use in Classical Civilization 241 courses at Brigham Young University.
The present resource contains information assembled for The Oxford Guide to Classical Mythology in the Arts, 1400 – 1990’s, edited by J. Davidson Reid (Oxford 1994), and it is used with express permission from Oxford University Press.
Address concerns or inquiries to macfarlane@byu.edu.