Signed (right foreground, on rock) with winged serpent

Dresden. Königlichen Gemäldegalerie. "Cranach-Ausstellung," 1899, no. 121 (lent by Fräulein Hubrich, Breslau).

Bennington, Vt. Bennington College. November 24–December 14, 1937, no catalogue?

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The Classical Contribution to Western Civilization," April 21–September 5, 1949, not in catalogue.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Art Treasures of the Metropolitan," November 7, 1952–September 7, 1953, no. 102.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "German Drawings: Masterpieces from Five Centuries," May 10–June 10, 1956, suppl. no. 196.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Masterpieces of Fifty Centuries," November 15, 1970–February 15, 1971, no. 233.

Richard Förster. "Neue Cranachs in Schlesien." Schlesiens Vorzeit in Bild und Schrift 7 (1899), pp. 267–73, pl. 10, refutes Schuchardt's theory that Cranach's Judgment of Paris paintings actually represent the knight Albonack presenting his three daughters to King Alfred III of Mercia [Christian Schuchardt, "Lucas Cranach des Aelteren, Leben und Werke," Leipzig, 1851 and 1871]; as sources for Cranach's interpretation of the Paris theme, cites an engraving by the Master of the Banderoles, a woodcut from Sebastian Brant's "Aeneid" of 1502, and Guido de Columna's 1287 publication, "Historia destructionis Troiae" [German translation, 1477], which describes Paris awakening beneath a tree to find Mercury and the three goddesses before him.

Max J. Friedländer. "Die Cranach-Ausstellung in Dresden." Repertorium für Kunstwissenschaft 22 (1899), p. 246, calls it a moderately good and probably original work by Cranach, dating from the 1530s.

Eduard Flechsig. Cranachstudien. Leipzig, 1900, p. 282, no. 121, attributes this picture to Hans Cranach.

Rudolf Ameseder. "Ein Parisurteil Lukas Cranachs d. Ä. in der Landesgalerie zu Graz." Repertorium für Kunstwissenschaft 33 (1910), p. 70.

Wegweiser durch die Sammlungen des Germanischen Museums im Neubau am Kornmarkt. Nuremberg, 1922, p. 56, lists this painting as hanging in the Cranach gallery of the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg, lent by Marcel von Nemes.

Max J. Friedländer. Cable to MMA. October 24, 1928, calls it a genuine and fine Cranach, rather well-preserved.

[A. L.] M[ayer]. "Zur Auktion Nemes." Pantheon 2 (September 1928), p. 452, ill. p. 448, calls it "The Dream of the Knight".

A. Philip McMahon. "Prints—Selected Masterpieces at the Metropolitan Museum." Parnassus 1 (March 15, 1929), pp. 14, 19, ill. cover, mentions it in relation to Cranach's print of the same theme.

H[arry]. B. W[ehle]. "A Judgment of Paris, by Cranach." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 24 (March 1929), pp. 86, 88, ill. p. 87, dates this picture about 1527 and calls it "one of several variations on this favorite theme of Cranach".

Harry B. Wehle. "A Judgment of Paris by Cranach." Metropolitan Museum Studies 2 (1929–30), pp. 1–12, ill. opp. p. 1, dates it about 1528, based on its closeness to another Judgment of Paris painting by Cranach, formerly in the von Hirsch collection [now Kunstmuseum Basel]; sees the MMA painting as characteristic of the artist's late style and refutes Flechsig's attribution [see Ref. 1900] to Hans Cranach.

Bryson Burroughs. The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Catalogue of Paintings. 9th ed. New York, 1931, p. 75.

Max J. Friedländer and Jakob Rosenberg. Die Gemälde von Lucas Cranach. Berlin, 1932, p. 68, no. 209, ill., erroneously as dated 1529; provide detailed provenance.

M. R. Rogers. "The Judgment of Paris, by Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472–1553)." Bulletin of the City Art Museum of St. Louis 17 (January 1932), p. 30, mentions it as a slightly different version of the Judgment of Paris paintings in the City Art Museum of St. Louis and formerly in the von Hirsch collection [now Kunstmuseum Basel].

Charles L. Kuhn. A Catalogue of German Paintings of the Middle Ages and Renaissance in American Collections. Cambridge, Mass., 1936, p. 38, no. 98, erroneously asserts that it is dated 1529 and that the support is canvas.

Hans Posse. Lucas Cranach d. Ä. 2nd ed. Vienna, 1943, pp. 32, 61, no. 86, ill., erroneously as dated 1529 and painted on canvas; observes that in this picture, Cranach revisits the subject of his 1508 woodcut, using it as an opportunity to create a new type of female nude.

Harry B. Wehle and Margaretta Salinger. The Metropolitan Museum of Art: A Catalogue of Early Flemish, Dutch and German Paintings. New York, 1947, pp. 200–202, ill., remark that this was a favorite subject of Cranach's, one that "offered him opportunities to paint his winsome female nudes (not without a suspicion of parody) in a setting of make-believe and enchantment"; call the MMA painting closely similar to the von Hirsch version of 1528, and regard our picture as a "work of the same time".

Dietrich von Bothmer. "The Classical Contribution to Western Civilization." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 7 (April 1949), p. 212, ill. p. 213 (detail).

Gabriel Rouchès. Cranach l'Ancien, 1472–1553. Paris, 1951, pl. 42.

Art Treasures of the Metropolitan: A Selection from the European and Asiatic Collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1952, p. 227, no. 102, colorpl. 102.

Nanette B. Rodney. "The Judgment of Paris." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 11 (October 1952), pp. 63–64, ill. p. 61 and cover (color detail).

Johannes Jahn in "Der Weg des Künstlers." Lucas Cranach der Ältere: Der Künstler und seine Zeit. Berlin, 1953, p. 72, notes that the tree motif links Cranach's early, mature, and late works.

Marcel Brion. German Painting. New York, 1959, p. 54.

Jakob Rosenberg. Die Zeichnungen Lucas Cranachs D. Ä. Berlin, 1960, p. 23 under no. 46, lists it in relation to Cranach's drawing of the same theme (Herzog Anton-Ulrich-Museum, Braunschweig).

Alfred Werner. German Painting: The Old Masters. New York, 1964, pp. 28, 43, no. 15, slide 15 (color).

Friedrich Thöne. Lucas Cranach der Ältere. Königstein, 1965, p. 6, ill. p. 79.

Pierre du Colombier. "Friedrich Thöne, 'Lucas Cranach der Ältere' [1965]." Gazette des beaux-arts, 6th ser., 67 (March 1966), p. 189, compares the MMA painting with the Braunschweig drawing, suggesting that Cranach exaggerated elements in the painting for comic effect.

N. Nikulin. Lucas Cranach. Leningrad [St. Petersburg], 1976, p. 18.

Inge El-Himoud-Sperlich. Das Urteil des Paris: Studien zur Bildtradition des Themas im 16. Jh. Munich, 1977, pp. 37–38, 45–46, 55–56, 59, 61–62, 75, 102, 163, fig. 43, dates it 1528–29; interprets Cranach's Judgment of Paris paintings as mythological marriage or betrothal subjects, with Venus shown as a chaste bride-to-be who does not initiate courtship, but rather is struck by Cupid's arrow; claims that Mercury wears the fantastic costume of a herald in contemporary theater.

Max J. Friedländer and Jakob Rosenberg. The Paintings of Lucas Cranach. rev. ed. Ithaca, N.Y., 1978, p. 120, no. 254, ill.

Howard Hibbard. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1980, pp. 260–62, fig. 470 (color).

Gottfried Biedermann. "Die 'Paris-Urteile' Lukas Cranachs d. Ä." Pantheon 39 (October–December 1981), pp. 312–13, fig. 7, places it shortly after the version dated 1530 in the Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe, and considers it the formal and iconographic consummation of Cranach's treatment of the subject.

Helmut Nickel. "'The Judgment of Paris' by Lucas Cranach the Elder: Nature, Allegory, and Alchemy." Metropolitan Museum Journal 16 (1981), pp. 117–29, figs. 1–2 (overall and detail), notes that Cranach and his workshop produced about 12 painted versions and 2 woodcuts of this theme; observes that the background in the MMA painting is an accurate depiction of the Elbe River and mountain range, the Elbsandsteingebirge, near Dresden; suggests Cranach was influenced by a 1526 drawing of the Paris theme by Johannes Hoch, illustrating a 1522 manuscript on alchemy, and proposes that he intended the MMA Judgment of Paris in particular as an alchemical allegory.

Larry Silver. "Early Northern European Paintings." Bulletin of The Saint Louis Art Museum, n.s., 16 (Summer 1982), p. 35, fig. 15, refers to this picture and the Karlsruhe and Basel panels as replicas from Cranach's large workshop.

Introduction by James Snyder in The Metropolitan Museum of Art: The Renaissance in the North. New York, 1987, pp. 15, 109, colorpl. 75.

Patricia Campbell Warner. "Fetters of Gold: The Jewelry of Renaissance Saxony in the Portraits of Cranach the Elder." Dress 16 (1990), p. 23, fig. 4.

Hubert Damisch. Le jugement de Pâris. Paris, 1992, pp. 126–38 [on the Paris theme in general], ill. p. 134 [English ed., 1996, pp. 163–71, 179–81, fig. 44], discusses the Judgment of Paris theme in the context of the Lutheran Reformation which was "actively supported by the Cranach studio," observing that "in this imagery rich in proto-feminist messages... humor, if not derision, often prevails over all moralizing intent".

Franz Matsche in "Humanistische Ethik am Beispiel der mythologischen Darstellungen von Lucas Cranach." Humanismus und Renaissance in Ostmitteleuropa vor der Reformation. Cologne, 1996, p. 67, fig. 9, discusses the philosophy of Conrad Celtis, in which one must choose from among three types of life, the "vita contemplativa," "vita activa," and "vita voluptuaria" and considers it fundamental to Cranach's depiction of the Paris theme.

Charles Talbot in "Fifteenth- to Eighteenth-Century European Paintings." The Robert Lehman Collection. 2, New York, 1998, p. 52.

Burton L. Dunbar. The Collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: German and Netherlandish Paintings, 1450–1600. Kansas City, Mo., 2005, pp. 85, 88, fig. 4e, considers this painting the "single major source" for Cranach's 1535 painting of the Three Graces (Nelson-Atkins Museum, Kansas City) and concludes that ours must pre-date 1535.