Eirene or Irene ( el, Ειρήνη) was an

ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...

artist described by

Pliny the Elder Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/2479), called Pliny the Elder (), was a Roman author, naturalist and natural philosopher, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the emperor Vespasian. He wrote the encyclopedic '' ...

in the 1st century. She was the daughter of a painter, and created an image of a girl that was housed at

Eleusis Elefsina ( el, Ελευσίνα ''Elefsina''), or Eleusis (; Ancient Greek: ''Eleusis'') is a suburban city and Communities and Municipalities of Greece, municipality in the West Attica regional unit of Greece. It is situated about northwest ...

. One of the six female artists of antiquity mentioned in Pliny the Elder's '' Natural History'' (XL.147-148) in A.D. 77:

Timarete Timarete ( el, Τιμαρέτη) (or Thamyris, Tamaris, Thamar; 5th century BC), was an ancient Greek painter. She was the daughter of the painter Micon the Younger of Athens. According to Pliny the Elder, she "scorned the duties of women and p ...

, Irene, Calypso,

Aristarete Aristarete (Greek: Ἀ''ρισταρέτη'') (or Aristareté, Aristareta) was an ancient Greek painter. Little is known about her, including where and when she lived. Although none of her works are known to be extant, Pliny the Elder's '' Natur ...

Iaia Iaia of Cyzicus ( el, Ιαία της Κυζίκου), sometimes (incorrectly) called Lala or Lalla, or rendered as Laia or Maia, was a Roman painter, born in Greece, and relatively exceptional for being a woman artist. She was alive during the ...

, Olympias. During the Renaissance,

Boccaccio Giovanni Boccaccio (, , ; 16 June 1313 – 21 December 1375) was an Italian people, Italian writer, poet, correspondent of Petrarch, and an important Renaissance humanism, Renaissance humanist. Born in the town of Certaldo, he became so we ...

, a 14th-century humanist, included Eirene in ''

De mulieribus claris ''De Mulieribus Claris'' or ''De Claris Mulieribus'' (Latin for "Concerning Famous Women") is a collection of biographies of historical and mythological women by the Florentine author Giovanni Boccaccio, composed in Latin prose in 1361–1362. ...

'' (Latin for ''

On Famous Women ''De Mulieribus Claris'' or ''De Claris Mulieribus'' (Latin for "Concerning Famous Women") is a collection of biographies of historical and mythological women by the Florentine author Giovanni Boccaccio, composed in Latin prose in 1361–1362. ...

''). However, in this telling Boccaccio apparently conflated many of the women described by Pliny and attributed many more works to Eirene. Some other paintings he credits to Eirene are an older Calypso, the gladiator Theodorus, and a famous dancer called Alcisthenes.Virginia Brown's translation of Giovanni Boccaccio’s Famous Women, pp 123 - 124; Harvard University Press, 2001;

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References

*Pliny the Elder. ''Naturalis historia'', XXXV.40.140, 147. *Harris, Anne Sutherland and

Linda Nochlin Linda Nochlin (''née'' Weinberg; January 30, 1931 – October 29, 2017) was an American art historian, Lila Acheson Wallace Professor Emerita of Modern Art at New York University Institute of Fine Arts, and writer. As a prominent feminist art h ...

. ''Women Artists: 1550-1950''. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Knopf, New York, 1976. {{DEFAULTSORT:Eirene Ancient Greek women artists Ancient Greek painters Greek women painters 1st-century BC Greek women 1st-century BC painters

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