Eirene (artist)

Eirene or Irene (Greek: Ειρήνη) was an ancient Greek artist described by Pliny the Elder in the 1st century. She was the daughter of a painter, and created an image of a girl that was housed at Eleusis.

One of the five or six female artists of antiquity mentioned in Pliny the Elder's Natural History (XL.147-148) in A.D. 77: Timarete, Irene, Aristarete, Iaia, Olympias, and possibly Calypso.^[1]

During the Renaissance, Giovanni Boccaccio, a 14th-century humanist, included Eirene in De mulieribus claris (Latin for On Famous Women). Some of the paintings he credits to Eirene are an older Calypso, the gladiator Theodorus and Alcisthenes, a famous dancer.^[2]

^ J. Linderski. The Paintress Calypso and Other Painters in Pliny. Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik. Bd. 145 (2003), pp. 83-96
^ Boccaccio, Giovanni (2003). Famous Women. Translated by Brown, Virginia. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-01130-4.

[1] J. Linderski. The Paintress Calypso and Other Painters in Pliny. Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik. Bd. 145 (2003), pp. 83-96

[2] Boccaccio, Giovanni (2003). Famous Women. Translated by Brown, Virginia. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-01130-4.

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