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Three nude women, three men, and a child stand or sit under the canopies of trees close to us as others move through a deep mountainous landscape in this horizontal painting. The people all have pale skin and muscular proportions. The women also have blond or light brown hair and delicate facial features. The women stand facing us and a nude man, who sits with his back to us at the bottom center of the composition. The man, Paris, sits on a ruby-red cloth and holds out a round, golden apple in one hand. The woman at the center of the trio takes the apple from him. A winged, nude, baby-like putto standing at her feet reaches one hand toward Paris and holds a bow down by his side in his other hand. Translucent white cloth covers that woman’s head and wraps in front of her groin, and a sapphire-blue robe falls from her shoulders. The woman to our left wears a gold helmet. She has a spear on one side and holds the index finger and thumb of the other hand up. The woman to our right hunches forward as she leans, also with one hand up, toward the apple while looking at Paris. She wears a gold tiara and white cloth falls from her shoulder and flutters over her buttocks. Just beyond Paris and to our left, another man leans one elbow against a tree stump and raises the other hand toward the trio of women. He holds a staff with two intertwining serpents in one hand and wears a brimmed cap with gold wings and a harvest-yellow robe over a red tunic. A bearded man sits beside an overturned urn near the lower right corner. Water pours from the vessel to a river along the bottom edge of the canvas. Trees with dark green canopies frame the scene, which opens onto a vast landscape beyond the women. A man pursues a woman in the shadows of the trees to our left. A woman and child ride a donkey as another woman walks alongside it in the near distance beyond the trees to our right. Deer drink from the river, which winds into the distance, and a man walks over a natural bridge there. Faint white dots suggest sheep grazing on a grassy field in the distance, which leads back to a building complex. A round structure there is surrounded by panel-like buttresses. Three obelisks stand around what might be a tomb. More buildings and statues are hazy where the land meets the horizon, about two-thirds of the way up the composition. Ivory-white clouds are streaked across a turquoise-blue sky above.

Giovanni Sons

The Judgment of Paris, late 16th century

West Building, Main Floor — Gallery 27

Medium

oil on canvas

Dimensions

overall: 121.3 x 165.4 cm (47 3/4 x 65 1/8 in.)

framed: 158.4 x 202.3 x 8.6 cm (62 3/8 x 79 5/8 x 3 3/8 in.)

Credit Line

Samuel H. Kress Collection

Accession Number

1961.9.80

Artists / Makers

Giovanni Sons (painter) Flemish, 1553 - 1611 or 1614

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
Read our full Open Access policy for images .

Provenance

(Count Alessandro Contini Bonacossi, Florence); sold 1955 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[1] gift 1961 to NGA.

[1] According to F.R. Shapley, Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian School, XVI-XVIII Century, Washington, 1973: 14. See also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/2209.

Associated Names

Contini Bonacossi, Alessandro, Count
Kress Foundation, Samuel H.

Exhibition History

1995: Fiamminghi a Roma, 1508-1608: Artisti dei Paesi Bassi e del Principato di Liegi a Roma durante il Rinascimento, Palais des Beaux Arts, Brussels; Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome, 1995, no. 247, repro.

Bibliography

1956: Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection Acquired by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation 1951-56. Introduction by John Walker, text by William E. Suida and Fern Rusk Shapley. National Gallery of Art. Washington, 1956: 136, repro., as by Nicolò dell' Abate and Denys Calvaert.

1956: Walker, John. "The Nation's Newest Old Masters." The National Geographic Magazine 110, no. 5 (November 1956): 645, color repro. 650-651,

1959: Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 216, repro., as by Nicolò dell'Abate and Denys Calvaert.

1965: Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 97, as by Nicolè dell'Abate and Denys Calvaert.

1968: National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 85, repro., as by Nicolè dell'Abate and Denys Calvaert.

1973: Shapley, Fern Rusk. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XVI-XVIII Century. London, 1973: 29-30, fig. 340.

1975: European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 28, repro., as by Bertoia.

1979: Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1979: 1:68-71; 2:pl. 45, 45A, 45B, as by Bertoia.

1985: European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 379, repro.