Before a darkening, foreboding sky, Eris flies over the wedding feast clasping her golden apple inscribed “for the fairest.” To the left, Apollo serenades the guests, accompanied by two other musicians. To the right, Fama, the personification of fame and rumor, blows her golden horn.

Practically hidden in the center of the painting, Peleus and Thetis sit in shadow across from each other, the groom tenderly offering a glass of wine to his bride. The pair’s demure demeanor contrasts with the lechery all around them. At the table to the right, even the normally straight-laced Minerva, virgin goddess of wisdom, has dropped her shield, spear, and composure to partake in the festivities—though she appears wary of the naked, balding god embracing her (possibly Vulcan, who in another tale tries unsuccessfully to wed her). At the table to their left are the adulterous lovers Mars and Venus. Cupid, her son, points his arrow toward Venus’ heart. 

In the far distance is the scene that followed in the wake of Eris’ disruptive toss: asked by Jupiter to decide which of the goddesses is fairest, the shepherd Paris awards the golden apple to Venus. In return for the title, she had offered him as bribe the love of the most beautiful woman on earth. Helen, already married to the king of Sparta, is Paris’ prize, and her abduction sparks the Trojan War. 

Diana, goddess of the hunt whose association with the moon is symbolized by the golden crescent on her forehead, sits with her father Jupiter, crowned and clasping a lightning bolt. The king of the gods had initially courted Thetis for himself. After a prophecy foretold that the sea nymph would bear a son who would become greater than his father, Jupiter declared she should marry a mortal. Thetis and Peleus’ son was Achilles, the great Greek warrior and central figure in the Trojan War.