eucanthos:Unknown (Roman)The Three Graces, early 2nd c. AD. Parian marble: Height 137 cm; width 116
eucanthos:Unknown (Roman)The Three Graces, early 2nd c. AD. Parian marble: Height 137 cm; width 116 cm; depth 41 cm.Created in the first decades of the second century A.D. by anonymous Roman sculptor who used the work of a late Hellenistic artist as inspiration. The scientific research team in the Vatican assumes it is related to the sculptor Stephano and his circle, which contributed to the elaborate and cultured decorative program prepared in the temple of Venere Genitrice, inaugurated in the Forum of Caesar in 46 B.C. It invites the viewer to contemplate their feminine beauty without the gestures of modesty that the late classical age characterized in representations of Aphrodite.The iconographic motif of the Three Graces had great fortune during the Roman age, and there are numerous replicated renditions, especially in painting and sculpture, both in relief and in the round. The group can be considered an admirable blend of the “classic” i.e., that unmistakable canon created by Greek art, based on rhythm, symmetry, balance, and naturalism.Perhaps that is why such iconography greatly inspired Renaissance artists and, among them, in particular, Raphael, that between 1504 and 1505, created a small painting of The Three Graces in a perfect and classic harmony of shapes and tones. - Vatican Restoration Project -- source link