Eirene (artist)



Eirene or Irene (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 six female artists of antiquity mentioned in Pliny the Elder's Natural History (XL.147-148) in A.D. 77: Timarete, Irene, Calypso, Aristarete, Iaia, Olympias.

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.