Zeuxis and Parrhasius, painters of Ephesus in the 5th century BC, are reported in the Naturalis Historia of Pliny the Elder to have staged a contest to determine which of the two was the greater artist. When Zeuxis unveiled his painting of grapes, they appeared so luscious and inviting that birds flew down from the sky to peck at them. Zeuxis then asked Parrhasius to pull aside the curtain from his painting. When it was discovered that the curtain itself was Parrhasius' painting, Zeuxis was forced to concede defeat, for while his work had managed to fool the eyes of birds, Parrhasius had deceived the eyes of an artist.
Zeuxis laughed to death at one of his own paintings.
It is perhaps a variation of this story when we are told (Pliny) that Zeuxis also painted a boy holding grapes towards which birds flew, the artist remarking that if the boy had been as well painted as the grapes the birds would have kept at a distance.
Lucian, in his Zeuxis, speaks of him as carrying this search to a novel and strange degree, as illustrated in the group of a female Centaur with her young.
But, in spite of the tendency towards realism inherent in the new method of Zeuxis, he is said to have retained the ideality which had characterized his predecessors.
Zeuxis was born in Héraclee around 464 B.-C and was presumably the pupil of Appolodore.
Zeuxis also painted a family of Centaurs which was considered as one of his masterpieces.
Zeuxis painted a still-life of grapes which was so perfect that birds tried to pick up while Parrhasius showed him a painting covered by a veil which he tried to raise but it occurred that the veil was in fact a painting itself.
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