He was probably a nephew of the sophist Philostratus of Athens, and is credited with two books formerly attributed to his uncle.
Eikones (Εἰκόνες, Images or Imagines) is ostensibly a description of 64 pictures in a Neapolitan gallery.
Goethe, Welcker, Brunn, E. Bertrand and Helbig, among others, have held that the descriptions are of actually existing works of art, while Heyne and Friederichs deny this.
Written in the form of a conversation between a Thracian vine-dresser on the shore of the Hellespont and a Phoenician merchant who derives his knowledge from the hero Protesilaus, Palamedes is exalted at the expense of Odysseus, and Homer's unfairness to him is attacked.
It has been suggested that Philostratus is here describing a series of heroic paintings in the palace of Julia Domna.