The Judgment of Paris

baron François Gérard

ca. 1804–12 · Graphite; squared in graphite · Drawings and Prints

We know from a letter from his friend, the painter Pierre Narcisse Guérin, sent from the Villa Medici in Rome, on August 8, 1804 that Gérard had begun working on a painting depicting The Judgment of Paris, a mythological tale that appears in Homer’s Iliad, in which the Trojan prince Paris judges the beauty of three goddesses, ultimately awarding the golden apple to Venus in return for her gift of Helen of Sparta. Paris’s abduction of the Spartan queen would set off the Trojan War. Gérard became frustrated with his canvas and destroyed it in 1812, salvaging only a few small fragments. This study is a record of Gérard’s composition.

Artist

baron François Gérard

Date

ca. 1804–12

Medium

Graphite; squared in graphite

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

Gift of Roberta J.M. Olson and Alexander B.V. Johnson, 2021