Paris and Oenone

The moment in the tragic story of Paris and Oenone, when Paris attests to his devotion to his bride Oenone by inscribing her name into the bark of a tree, was treated by Jacob de Wit on several occasions during his career, such as the 1737 dated picture in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, and the painting with Christie's, London, 18 December 1953, lot 150 (see: A. Staring, Jacob de Wit, 1958, p. 144). It invokes the classical tale recounted by Apollodorus in the Biblioteca (3.12.6) and by Horace in Heroides (V.9-25), in which Oenone, a water nymph and daughter of the river god Oeneus, writes an imaginary letter to her husband Paris, Prince of Troy, who had abandoned his wife for the beautiful Spartan queen, Helen of Troy. Oenone reminds her former husband that '…the beeches still keep my name which you carved upon them…and as the trunks grow, so grows my name.' Their story would take a dark turn: Paris would abduct Helen, forcibly taking her with him back to Troy, the act which provoked the disastrous Trojan War, an event that had been prophesied from the moment of his birth. After the fall of Troy, Paris, who was wounded in the battle, returned to the forlorn Oenone. Although skilled in the medical arts, Oenone refused to nurse him back to health and Paris was returned to Mount Ida to die. Oenone relented, but too late to save him. Rushing to Troy, she found Paris already dead and, in a frenzy of grief, took her own life.