Roman Statue of Three Graces Acquired by The Metropolitan Museum of Art
By STAN PARCHIN
July 8, 2010
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| Roman (2nd Century A.D.). The Three Graces. Marble. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. |
New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art announced today its acquisition of The Three Graces (2nd Century A.D.), a Roman marble copy of a Hellenistic Greek sculpture from the 2nd Century B.C. The important group statue was discovered in Rome, near the Forum of Nerva and Emperor Vespasian's Temple of Peace, in 1892. On loan to the Met from a private collector since 1992, it has been on view in the center of the Shelby White and Leon Levy Sculpture Court since its opening in 2007.
The extremely well-preserved work features alternating front and back views of the three nude Graces, worshipped in Greece and Asia Minor as goddesses of fertility. Aglaia (Beauty), Euphrosyne (Mirth) and Thalia (Abundance), the handmaidens of Aphrodite (whose birth they attended), place their hands on each other's shoulders. They bestow what is most pleasurable and beneficent in nature and society. Ancient authors treated the mythological figures as an allegory for the cycle of giving, accepting and returning favors. The famous and enduring composition from Greek antiquity enjoyed great popularity in Western European art during the Renaissance and thereafter.
Source
Picón, Carlos A., et al. Art of the Classical World in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2007, 491.