The Judgement of Paris
| Reference: | S28287 |
| Author | Hans Sebald BEHAM |
| Year: | 1546 |
| Measures: | 47 x 70 mm |
€900.00
| Reference: | S28287 |
| Author | Hans Sebald BEHAM |
| Year: | 1546 |
| Measures: | 47 x 70 mm |
€900.00
Description
Paris seated at left and the three goddesses at right, with Venus accepting the apple. Mercury with caduceus standing behind Paris and in front of rocks, with Cupid in flight at upper right.
Engraving, 1546, signed with monogram on tablet at upper left. At bottom "IUDICIUM PARIDIS" along lower edge.
Example from the second state described by Pauli, with the retouches above the signature and date tablet.
The myth concerning the judgment of Paris (the κρίσις τῶν θεῶν, i.e., the "confrontation" or "judgment between the goddesses") was well known in Greco-Roman Antiquity, and its mention in surviving literary sources is frequent. The reason is clear: among the consequences of that episode, through the abduction of Helen, was the Trojan War, during which the defeated goddesses would continue to exert their hatred against the city.
Paris, according to Greek mythology, was the son of Priam king of Troy and Hecuba. As soon as he was born he was abandoned on Mount Ida because, according to Cassandra's prophecy, he would cause enormous misfortune to his city. The story of the Golden Apple is mentioned in Euripides' "Trojan Women". The affair began during the marriage of Peleus and Thetis (who would become Achilles' parents), originated by a gesture of the goddess Eris personification of discord and sister of Ares. The goddess let a golden apple roll among the guests with the inscription "To the fairest". which sparked an immediate argument between Hera, Athena and Aphrodite that soon turned into a fierce struggle for possession of the Golden Apple. Unable to prevail one over the other, Zeus was asked to intervene, but he refused to give an opinion, deferring judgment to an impartial person. Hermes, sent to earth to search for this person, identified Paris as the one who would award the Golden Apple to the most beautiful goddess. Paris' choice fell on Aphrodite (Venus), who in order to reward him promised him the most beautiful woman in the world, namely Helen the wife of Menelaus king of Sparta. Thus it was that Paris, with the help of the goddess, abducted Helen by taking her with him to Troy and creating the pretext for the famous war. With his choice Paris also antagonized Hera and Athena, who therefore sided with the Greeks.
Shortly before 1520, some young artists in Albercht Dürer's circle took to making very small engravings that challenged the viewer with a miniature world of new secular subject matter and unconventional interpretations of traditional themes. Because of the small size of their engravings, these artists have long been affixed with the collective, and unflattering, name of Small Nuremberg Masters. The core of the group consists of three artists from Nuremberg, Hans Sebald & Bartel Beham and Georg Pencz, and in addition Jacob Bink from Cologne and Heinrich Aldegrever from Soest.
Very good impression, printed on contemporary laid paper, trimmed at the marginal line, in very good condition.
Bibliografia
Pauli 1901-11, Hans Sebald Beham: Ein Kritisches Verzeichniss seiner Kupferstiche Radirungen und Holzschnitte (92.II); Hollstein, German engravings, etchings and woodcuts c.1400-1700 (92.II); Bartsch, Le Peintre graveur (VIII.153.89).
Hans Sebald BEHAM Nuremberg 1500 - Frankfurt 1550
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Engraver, etcher, designer of woodcuts and stained glass, painter and illustrator. In contemporary documents and prints he was nearly always identified as Sebald Beham although since the 17th century (Sandrart) and into the early years of the 20th he has mistakenly been called Hans Sebald Beham on the basis of his monogram: HSP or HSB. This reflects S[ebald] Peham/Beham with the P (Nuremberg pronunciation) changing to B c. 1531, when he appears to have moved to Frankfurt. Sandrart’s biography of him is illustrated with a printed portrait similar to Sebald’s painted Self-portrait in his David panel in the Louvre; around the Sandrart portrait is an inscription identifying him as painter and engraver. Only one of Sebald’s panel paintings has survived (the Story of David, 1534; Paris, Louvre), though documents cited by Hampe and Vogler refer to him as a journeyman for painting in 1521 and as having his own journeyman—i.e. running a workshop—in 1525. Sebald is best known to posterity, however, for his prints, of which he produced a prodigious quantity: approximately 252 engravings, 18 etchings and 1500 woodcuts, including woodcut book illustrations. Biographical information is scanty: Sandrart alleged that he was trained by Barthel and opened a tavern, the bad reputation of which derived from his own dissolute life. Unquestionably, however, he was industrious and meticulous artistically. He began producing prints in quantity in 1519, though a few date to before then: a woodcut of Lust from a series of the Ten Commandments—a youthfully naive work produced in 1512 when Sebald was 12—and a sheet of sometimes awkwardly drawn pen-and-ink studies of male and female heads on red prepared paper (1518; Brunswick, Herzog Anton Ulrich-Mus.). His first engraving, dated 1518, is a diminutive Portrait of a Young Woman.
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Hans Sebald BEHAM Nuremberg 1500 - Frankfurt 1550
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Engraver, etcher, designer of woodcuts and stained glass, painter and illustrator. In contemporary documents and prints he was nearly always identified as Sebald Beham although since the 17th century (Sandrart) and into the early years of the 20th he has mistakenly been called Hans Sebald Beham on the basis of his monogram: HSP or HSB. This reflects S[ebald] Peham/Beham with the P (Nuremberg pronunciation) changing to B c. 1531, when he appears to have moved to Frankfurt. Sandrart’s biography of him is illustrated with a printed portrait similar to Sebald’s painted Self-portrait in his David panel in the Louvre; around the Sandrart portrait is an inscription identifying him as painter and engraver. Only one of Sebald’s panel paintings has survived (the Story of David, 1534; Paris, Louvre), though documents cited by Hampe and Vogler refer to him as a journeyman for painting in 1521 and as having his own journeyman—i.e. running a workshop—in 1525. Sebald is best known to posterity, however, for his prints, of which he produced a prodigious quantity: approximately 252 engravings, 18 etchings and 1500 woodcuts, including woodcut book illustrations. Biographical information is scanty: Sandrart alleged that he was trained by Barthel and opened a tavern, the bad reputation of which derived from his own dissolute life. Unquestionably, however, he was industrious and meticulous artistically. He began producing prints in quantity in 1519, though a few date to before then: a woodcut of Lust from a series of the Ten Commandments—a youthfully naive work produced in 1512 when Sebald was 12—and a sheet of sometimes awkwardly drawn pen-and-ink studies of male and female heads on red prepared paper (1518; Brunswick, Herzog Anton Ulrich-Mus.). His first engraving, dated 1518, is a diminutive Portrait of a Young Woman.
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