Éris through the eyes of sculptors, painters, and craftsmen across the ages
Attic black-figure kylix, inscribed Eris — the sole surviving vase to name the goddess herself: Eris strides through the tondo of a lip cup painted between 575 and 525 BC, her identity fixed by the painter's own inscription (Antikensammlung Berlin, F 1775; LIMC Eris 1).
The Goddess of Discord Choosing the Apple of Contention in the Garden of the Hesperides — J. M. W. Turner's c. 1806 epic (Tate Britain) gives Eris her rare starring canvas, plucking the fatal apple among the Hesperides' dragon-guarded boughs before the whole Trojan War unfolds from her hand.
The Golden Apple of Discord (The Wedding of Thetis and Peleus) — Jacob Jordaens's Prado banquet scene catches the precise instant of ruin: uninvited Eris hurls the golden apple into the feast of the gods, the seed from which the Judgment of Paris and the war at Troy will grow.
The Judgement of Paris — Rubens's c. 1606 Prado canvas stages the harvest of Eris's apple: Hermes leads Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite before the Trojan shepherd, whose verdict for love over wisdom and power kindles ten years of war.
The Judgement of Paris, 1528 — Lucas Cranach the Elder's signed and dated panel (Kunstmuseum Basel) recasts the Trojan prince as a dreaming knight in armor, the three goddesses arriving to claim the apple Eris set among them.
The Judgment of Paris (engraving after Raphael) — Marcantonio Raimondi's celebrated c. 1510–1520 print spreads Eris's quarrel across the Renaissance world, engraving the moment three rival goddesses submit their beauty to a mortal's disastrous choice.
The Judgement of Paris — Antoine Watteau's 1718–1721 Louvre panel distills the myth into Rococo intimacy: Paris extends the golden apple toward Aphrodite while Cupid clings to her, closing the circuit Eris opened at the wedding of Peleus and Thetis.
