Three Graces

 Here we see depicted three partially draped female figures: they are the Three Graces of classical antiquity: Aglaia, Euphrosyne and Thalia. Daughters of Zeus the Graces were often associated respectively with pleasure, chastity and beauty, to the point of becoming true personifications of these characteristics. The lightness of Francesco Furini's brushwork helps to make them float on the clouds. This composition repeats in reverse a painting from 1638 - of the same subject and the same author - now in the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg. A member of the Tuscan artist's workshop may have reused the cardboard - or the preparatory drawing - to create this work. Franceso Furini was one of the greatest Florentine painters of the first half of the seventeenth century, known for his sensual female nudes and for the nuanced tonal effects. His interest in classical sculpture is evident in his numerous mythological and allegorical paintings from the 1620s and 1630s. Despite this aspect, the figures are reinterpreted through an intense study of nature, thanks to the numerous studies of female nudes of which there remains testimony. Oil on canvas, The National Gallery. London.