This painting is the measure of Burns’ quality as an artist : here he has brought us to the brink of sentimentality and dramatically pulled us back by making us participants in an enigma rather than merely spectators of a beautiful scene. A beautiful young woman with downcast eyes; a little boy clutching something precious; two little girls looking in wonder from behind a tree; and a title from Greek mythology.

These are the components of an intriguing painting whose overall stillness is set in a dramatic landscape of trees, which serves to bathe the whole picture in a cool luminosity. The meditative tranquillity of the scene has a dream-like quality where the wonder of the little girls is transferred through the composition to the viewer : their wonder becomes our wonder. A significant moment of time has been captured. As in My Father, Son and I the child is clutching an apple - a desirable object which symbolises aspirations for the future.

The title, however, suggests that, as in the myth, it is to be awarded as a prize. But the classical myth here takes on Christian overtones : the apple is also the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. The painting therefore suggests the transition from the innocence of childhood - represented by the wondering little girls - to the knowledge of adulthood. The sexual overtones of the mysterious young woman in green who appears wholly withdrawn into herself suggests the future : but, as in the classical and the biblical myths, future consequences cannot be foreseen. After all, the golden apple of myth was primarily the source of discord.