The Shepherd Paris (van Dyck) The Shepherd Paris (van Dyck) The Shepherd Paris is a c.1628 painting by the Flemish artist Anthony van Dyck, dating to just after the artist's return from Italy and showing the strong influence of Titian. It shows Paris during the Judgement of Paris, holding the golden apple he has been ordered to give to the most beautiful of three goddesses - unusually the artist focuses on Paris and does not show the goddesses themselves. A painting of Paris recorded as owned by the marquis de Voyer d’Argenson in 1754 is probably to be identified with this work. It is now
Anthony van Dyck portrait tradition—of painters such as William Dobson, Robert Walker and Isaac Fuller—into what certainly became elegant blandness in the hands of many of van Dyck's successors, like Lely or Kneller. The conventional view has always been more favourable: "When Van Dyck came hither he brought Face-Painting to us; ever since which time ... England has excel'd all the World in that great Branch of the Art’ (Jonathan Richardson: "An Essay on the Theory of Painting", 1715, 41). Thomas Gainsborough is reported to have said on his deathbed "We are all going to heaven, and Van Dyck is of the Company."