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SANTE PERANDA (Venice, 1566 – Venice, 1639)
The goddess Eris presents the golden apple to Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite
oil on canvas, 141 x 118 cm
From: Private collection
This previously unpublished painting depicts three female figures seated around an oval table, easily identifiable by their attributes: Hera in the center (peacock), Athena on the right (helmet and spear), and Aphrodite on the left (a small winged Cupid at her feet). Standing next to the table, a woman carries a golden apple on a silver tray. In the upper left background, a male figure seen from behind, perhaps a servant, is lifting a red curtain, revealing the classical architectural elements that characterize the background. In the lower foreground, a seated cherub embraces a large silver amphora.
Identification of the subject and literary source:
The subject of the painting is taken from the "Cypria" (or "Cyprian Songs"), a lost Greek epic poem that was part of the "Trojan Cycle," which recounted the entire story of the Trojan War in verse.
The events narrated in the Cypria are chronologically placed at the beginning of the Trojan Cycle, before the Iliad, and likely date back to the 7th century BC. They deal with the events preceding and leading up to the abduction of Helen and the beginning of the war against the Trojans. The Cypria then describe the episode of Eris, goddess of discord, who, furious at being excluded from the wedding banquet of Peleus and Thetis, decided to exact her revenge. Arriving at the banquet, she left a golden apple, some say taken from the garden of the Hesperides, declaring that it was intended for "the most beautiful" of the divine guests. The dispute that arose between Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite over the assignment of the fruit and the associated title led to the Judgement of Paris among the three goddesses. Paris awarded the prize for beauty to Aphrodite and, in turn, received Helen, the wife of Menelaus and daughter of Zeus and Nemes. The abduction of Helen sparked the Trojan War.
Sante Peranda's work illustrates the very moment preceding the Judgement of Paris: the arrival of the goddess Eris with the golden apple at the wedding banquet of Peleus and Thetis and the delivery of the apple of discord.
Alongside this episode, the painter had created another painting depicting the Judgement of Paris, which should be considered a companion piece, or rather, a continuation of the story. (See Carlo Ridolfi's commentary below.)
Attribution:
The canvas is a mature work by the late Mannerist Venetian painter Sante Peranda (Venice, 1566–1639). Striking stylistic comparisons bring the painting closer to the canvases Peranda created in Venetian churches after his stay in Emilia, from 1608 to 1628, as court painter to the
Pico della Mirandola family. A pupil of Paolo Fiammingo, he trained in the workshop of Jacopo Negretti, known as Palma the Younger, and followed in his footsteps, creating numerous paintings for Venetian churches, also working in Rome and Loreto with "such a graceful, gentle, and graceful manner that one can truly say he surpassed the Master in gentleness" (Boschini, 1674).
The initial Palma-esque elements, such as the penchant for diagonal constructions and twisting figures, fade in his later works—created at the courts of Mirandola and Modena or after his return to his homeland after his stay in Emilia—characterized by the use of "exhausted and faded color" (S. L'Occaso). The quick brushstrokes that blur the forms in delicate chiaroscuro transitions, the cool and refined, at times pearly, chromatic scale, are typical characteristics of the painter's late period, when he developed "a delicate and very refined manner" (L. Lanzi). The canvases from the church of San Nicolò da Tolentino in Venice (Adoration of the Magi and Ecstasy of Saint Andrew Avellino) exhibit the same characteristics as the painting presented here: a vertical development of the composition, elongated figures, restrained gestures, and a cool color palette tending towards pearly gray.
Profane and mythological themes are not uncommon in the painter's work. He created the cycle of the Stories of Psyche for the Palazzo dei Pico, not completed until 1610, and immediately afterwards the cycle of the Ages of the World. Both are preserved in the Museum of the Ducal Palace in Mantua. The latter also came from the Palazzo dei Pico, where it was completed in the ceiling canvas designated as the Council of the Gods or Chaos, painted by Palma, the artist of the Iron Age. Peranda's three canvases (The Golden Age, the Silver Age, and the Bronze Age) belong to the best-known and most studied period of his production.
Stylist comparisons between the canvas in a private collection (above) and the Immaculate Conception by Sante Peranda from 1612 for the church of Mirandola (below).
Historical and archival documentation:
The work—along with its companion piece depicting the Judgement of Paris—is recorded "among private things," andexecuted for the Venetian nobleman Paolo Nani by the painter and historian Carlo Ridolfi in the text "The Wonders of Art or the Lives of the Illustrious Venetian Painters and the State," published in Venice in 1648:
"To Mr. Polo Nani, the universal flood, the falling of the golden apple at the table of the Gods, and the sentence pronounced upon it by Paris."
The writer was well acquainted with the Nani collection, having also executed paintings for Paolo Nani.
This information is indeed confirmed by archival sources:
1. The inventory of "Palazzo Nani in Contrà di S. Geremia" of December 26, 1697, records: "Companion paintings above the doors, of exquisite carving and size, three are by Padoan, three by Peranda, and four by Rodolfi, all numbered 10."
2. The 1765 inventory, with the attributions and estimates of the painter Gaspare Diziani, still records the canvases, albeit with the erroneous attribution to Andrea Micheli, known as Andrea Vicentino: "The Judgement of Paris by Andrea Visentin, d. 10," "Paris, Venus, and Junon by Andrea Visentin, d. 6."
The Patron:
The patron, Polo Nani (Venice 1611–1690), son of Zorzi, was a member of an ancient and noble Venetian family, resident in the Palazzo di San Trovaso (inherited in 1501 by Doge Agostino
Barbarigo). Since the early decades of the 16th century, members of the family had begun to build a rich collection of paintings.
Research and study by Dr. Laura Testa
