Paris receiving the Golden Apple

Part of a series of thirteen compositions illustrating the story of Paris which were etched by Pierre Lemaire before 1637, P. Pacht Bassani, Claude Vignon, Paris, 1992, nos. 205-17. The frontispiece of the series, dated 20 September 1637, was etched by Lemaire in Rome and dedicated to Vignon, whom he acknowledged as the author of the compositions. There are only two pictures and one drawing, the present one, that could be connected to the series of prints. Vignon painted a fourteenth composition which was not engraved. Paola Pacht Bassani dated the etchings to 1630-5.
Some pictures of Les histoires de Pâris et Hélène that were recorded in the country house of M. Feydeau de Brou might correspond to the original series of compositions.
We are grateful to Paolo Pacht-Bassani for her help in cataloguing the present lot.