The Judgement of Paris

The Judgement of Paris — the mythological contest in which the Trojan prince Paris awards the golden apple to Venus over Juno and Minerva, precipitating the Trojan War — was one of the most frequently painted mythological subjects in the sixteenth century because it offered an opportunity to depict three idealized female nudes alongside a male judge and divine messenger. Van Heemskerck's 1552 panel brings his mature Italianate vocabulary to a subject he would have known through Italian prints and classical sources absorbed during his Roman stay. The Judgement's moral dimensions — beauty over wisdom and power — gave it a literary and philosophical resonance that elevated it above pure sensual display. Van Heemskerck's version would have arranged the three goddesses in a manner that allowed comparative evaluation of their figures, replicating within the composition the judging act the myth describes.

The panel format and 1552 date place this work firmly in Van Heemskerck's mature period. The three goddess figures allow a display of Van Heemskerck's Italianate nude figure painting — rounded, firmly modelled forms derived from classical sculpture and Michelangelo — while Mercury's wings and wand and Paris's Phrygian cap provide the narrative's identifying iconographic markers. The landscape setting is handled in Van Heemskerck's standard manner for mythological panels.