Home > Auction >  Fine Arts and Antiques Auction December 2019 - European Art >  Lot.494 No visible signature, after the famous 'Judgement of Paris' by Peter Paul Rubens, The National Gallery in London, 17thC, oil on canvas, 146 x 195 cmIn this composition, the women are slightly more veiled than in the London painting (inventory N° NG194). Both paintings have identical dimensions.Included in the "Catalogo Completo" of Rubens, by M. Jaffé,  Milan 1989, p. 332The version preserved in the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden has an almost identical composition. The details of this much smaller painting are very similar.The story of the Judgement of Paris revolves around the Trojan prince who was asked to determine which goddess was the most beautiful, and to bestow on the winner the golden apple. Hera, with her finger pointing skywards, offered him political power, and Athena, decked out with a helmet and shield, offered him military prowess, whereas Venus, the goddess of love, promised him Helen, the most beautiful mortal in the world. Paris’ choice of Venus led, of course, to the ten-year Trojan War.