Oil on copper, 23.5cm by 30.5cm.
The painting was previously attributed to Cornelius van Poelenburgh (1594-1667), a Dutch landscape painter and draughtsman.
On the reverse is written: ‘By Polemburg from Signr. Vitturi, Vicino a St Vitale, Venice,’ from whom it was possibly bought by Brownlow, 9th Earl of Exeter (1725-1793).
Rottenhammer specialised in small, highly finished cabinet paintings of religious and mythological subjects, often on copper, which combined both German and Italian stylistic elements.
This work depicts The Judgement of Paris at the moment when he chooses Venus, as ‘the fairest one’, over her fellow goddesses Juno and Minerva.
