1912
Oil on canvas
180 x 180 cm
2003.3.1
Museum purchase with the assistance of the national and regional governments under the aegis of FRAM, 2003
© Musée de Valence, photo Éric Caillet
A transitional work between Lhote’s Fauvist and Cubist periods, influenced by Cézanne, this Judgment of Paris is one of three versions done by the artist; it may be the one shown at the Gold Section Exhibition in 1912. Its definitive version on canvas was shown at the Autumn Exhibition in the same year. It is a work of synthesis combing the two major themes most dear to the artist, landscape and faces, on which he wrote two treatises. Cubism and African art, which he collected, impose their coloured geometry of construction on the bodies of the goddesses, particularly the profile of Athena, and on the landscape, which is characteristic of the French countryside, with the palace of the Dukes of Nevers in the background.