Paris - Balestra

Paris - BalestraA print of Balestra's Paris an Italian Baroque engraving of the Trojan prince whose abduction of Helen began the Trojan War, drawn in the muscular, classicising figure style of the 17th and 18th century Italian schools. Paris also called Alexandros in Homer was the second son of King Priam of Troy. The war came from a single choice of his: on Mount Ida, asked to decide which of three goddesses was the most beautiful, he chose Aphrodite over Hera and

A black and white print from Giovanni Folo's engraving after Antonio Canova's Hercules and Lichas — the Neoclassical marble in which the dying Hercules

pushing watercolour close to the transparency and chromatic intensity of oil

and crushed him to death in the air

Crane's plate distils the hero's victory into a single vertical of figure and trophy

In Roman domestic painting it was read as a tableau of reconciled opposites — love and war

Apollo — god of music

craft and the city — patroness of Athens

his massive frame sags in a quiet register that is almost tender

the agoras

He responded with a figure that was

The tale survives in full only in Apuleius' 2nd century Latin novel The Golden Ass

sweat and dust from his forearm after competition