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Pyxis (round box) depicting the Judgment of Paris
Terracotta
Greek, Attic, white-ground
ca. 465–460 B.C
Attributed to the Penthesilea Painter (Attic vase painter, active ca. 460-ca. 440 B.C.)
During the middle of the fifth century B.C., the white-ground technique was commonly used for lekythoi, oil flasks placed on graves, and for fine vases of other shapes. As classical painters sought to achieve ever more complex effects with the limited possibilities of red-figure, the white background gave new prominence to the glaze lines and polychromy. This pyxis reflects the delight with which an accomplished artist depicts a traditional subject, the Judgment of Paris.
Zeus, king of the gods, held a banquet celebrating the marriage of the sea nymph Thetis to the mortal Peleus (to whom she bore Achilles). Eris, goddess of discord, was uninvited. Angered by this snub, she crashed the celebration and threw a golden apple (the Apple of Discord) into the proceedings, upon which was the inscription καλλίστη ("for the fairest one"). Three goddesses claimed the apple: Hera, Athena and Aphrodite. They asked Zeus to judge which of them was fairest. Zeus, reluctant to favour any claim himself, decided that the mortal Paris, son of Priam (king of Troy), would judge their cases. Guided by Hermes, the three candidates appeared before Paris on Mount Ida. Each attempted with her powers to bribe Paris; Hera offered to make him king of Europe and Asia, Athena offered wisdom and skill in war, and Aphrodite offered the love of the world's most beautiful woman, Helen of Sparta, wife of the Greek king Menelaus. Paris accepted Aphrodite's gift and awarded her the apple, receiving Helen as well as the enmity of the Greeks. The Greeks' expedition to retrieve Helen from Paris in Troy is the mythological basis of the Trojan War. Later in the war, Paris fatally wounded Achilles in the heel with an arrow, as foretold by Achilles's mother, Thetis.
Metropolitan Museum of Art
NYC
Pyxis (round box) depicting the Judgment of Paris
Terracotta
Greek, Attic, white-ground
ca. 465–460 B.C
Attributed to the Penthesilea Painter (Attic vase painter, active ca. 460-ca. 440 B.C.)
During the middle of the fifth century B.C., the white-ground technique was commonly used for lekythoi, oil flasks placed on graves, and for fine vases of other shapes. As classical painters sought to achieve ever more complex effects with the limited possibilities of red-figure, the white background gave new prominence to the glaze lines and polychromy. This pyxis reflects the delight with which an accomplished artist depicts a traditional subject, the Judgment of Paris.
Zeus, king of the gods, held a banquet celebrating the marriage of the sea nymph Thetis to the mortal Peleus (to whom she bore Achilles). Eris, goddess of discord, was uninvited. Angered by this snub, she crashed the celebration and threw a golden apple (the Apple of Discord) into the proceedings, upon which was the inscription καλλίστη ("for the fairest one"). Three goddesses claimed the apple: Hera, Athena and Aphrodite. They asked Zeus to judge which of them was fairest. Zeus, reluctant to favour any claim himself, decided that the mortal Paris, son of Priam (king of Troy), would judge their cases. Guided by Hermes, the three candidates appeared before Paris on Mount Ida. Each attempted with her powers to bribe Paris; Hera offered to make him king of Europe and Asia, Athena offered wisdom and skill in war, and Aphrodite offered the love of the world's most beautiful woman, Helen of Sparta, wife of the Greek king Menelaus. Paris accepted Aphrodite's gift and awarded her the apple, receiving Helen as well as the enmity of the Greeks. The Greeks' expedition to retrieve Helen from Paris in Troy is the mythological basis of the Trojan War. Later in the war, Paris fatally wounded Achilles in the heel with an arrow, as foretold by Achilles's mother, Thetis.
Metropolitan Museum of Art
NYC