The Three Graces

Three partially draped nudes, the Three Graces of Antiquity – Aglaia, Euphrosyne and Thalia – seem to be floating on clouds. They were daughters of Zeus and the Three Graces were often associated with pleasure, chastity and beauty.The composition repeats in reverse a 1638 painting of the same subject by the Italian Baroque artist Franceso Furini, which is now in the Hermitage, St Petersburg. A member of Furini’s studio may have re-used his cartoon, or large-scale preparatory drawing, to create this work.Furini was one of the leading Florentine painters of the first half of the seventeenth century, known for his sensual female nudes and sfumato effects. His interest in classical sculpture is evident in his many mythological and allegorical paintings of the 1620s and 1630s. Although he took his subjects from Antiquity, he reinterpreted them through an intense study of nature and made many life studies, particularly of female nudes. A preparatory drawing by Furini for the seated Grace survives in the Louvre, Paris.