The Judgement of Paris

By 1528, when Cranach painted this panel, humanist scholars across Germany were rediscovering the Greek myths, and he gave this one thoroughly local dress. The subject is the contest that set off the Trojan War. The prince Paris must decide which of three goddesses is the most beautiful and hand the winner a golden apple. Cranach turns Paris into a German knight in polished armour, dozing under a tree as though resting from a hunt, while the god Mercury, armoured too, wakes him to deliver the verdict. The three goddesses stand before him as slender nudes, shown from three sides at once, front, back and profile, so the body is read in the round. In place of the golden apple of the old story, Mercury holds up a small glass orb.