Paris Leaning on a Tree Trunk
Unknown · 100-150 AD
A young man in a soft Phrygian cap, with long locks falling to his shoulders, leans on a tree trunk with his legs crossed. The cap marks him as Paris, the Trojan prince who judged the beauty contest of the goddesses and chose Aphrodite. The dreamy, relaxed pose belongs to the fourth century BC, when sculptors liked figures at rest. Only the head and the torso, from the neck to mid thigh, are ancient, along with the plinth with the feet and the support; the rest was recut or remade, and the head has been reattached.
The statue was found in 1769 at Hadrian's Villa at Tivoli, the vast country residence where the emperor gathered copies of Greek masterpieces, and it was carved in Italy in the first half of the second century AD. Its Greek model is sometimes linked to the Athenian sculptor Euphranor, who is recorded as having made a Paris, though this is a matter of debate. After two centuries in private hands, it was bought by the Louvre in 1988, one of the most recent additions to this gallery.
Did You Know? The statue was dug up at Hadrian's Villa in 1769 but only reached the Louvre in 1988, more than two centuries later.
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