Three Graces - by Raphael

Three Graces - by Raphael
Three Graces - by Raphael

Derived either directly or indirectly from ancient classical sculpture, this panel may have had as its prototype a small Roman group now in the museum of Siena Cathedral or a late-fifteenth-century medal that incorporated the same motif. The three handsome figures probably represent, from left to right, Chastity, Beauty, and Amor. Chastity is quickly recognized because she wears a thin, transparent veil over her lower torso while her sisters have no such covering. Furthermore, her breasts are shielded from view by the extended arm of the central figure; Amor's breasts, on the contrary, are revealed. While Amor wears a necklace and Beauty has a string of beads that falls down on the back of her neck from her hair, Chastity appears with no adornment.

The background reminds the viewer, suspiciously, of the background of the Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci, which was painted around the same time. Done in the misty, sfumato style that was popular at the time, Raphael's background is full of gentle but bleak looking hills, a lake, and stunted trees that march, in perfectly mastered perspective, toward misty, chalk gray mountains.