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| The Three Graces |
Artist:William Etty (British, York 1787–1849 York)
Medium:Oil on millboard
Dimensions:22 1/2 x 18 3/4 in. (57.2 x 47.6 cm)
Classification:Paintings
In 1805, with the support of family, Etty made his way to London, where he enrolled in the Royal Academy schools and was also apprenticed to Thomas Lawrence for a year. From 1811 he was a regular contributor to the Royal Academy exhibitions, and was elected an associate in 1824 and an academician in 1828. A history painter with a special interest in the female nude, Etty also painted portraits, and, in the 1840s, landscapes. He lived to see a monographic exhibition of his work held at London's Society of Arts in 1849.
This oil sketch is a study for the Three Graces in Etty’s painting Venus and Her Satellites (Museo de Arte de Ponce, Fundación Luis A. Ferré), which was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1835 and which the artist regarded as one of his principal works. Venus is dressed by three young women and accompanied as well by the Graces, one of whom offers strings of pearls and another a wreath of flowers. The sensuous nude bodies set off by brightly colored draperies in the final painting gave offense, and the picture, when first exhibited, was criticized as too erotic. Roger Fry bought the sketch for the Metropolitan Museum in December 1905, shortly before he became curator of paintings, describing it as "unfinished but superb" (telegram in departmental files). Whether Etty would have called it "unfinished" is open to question. It is probably as he intended that it should remain, and this is fortunate, in that many of Etty’s figure studies were completed after his death by others, who added landscape backgrounds or draperies to make them more salable. As well as sketching nudes at the Royal Academy, Etty employed models to pose in his studio, which seems likely to have been the case here, as the grouping appears to have been carefully arranged and the motif was carried over quite precisely.
A thinly painted version of the Ponce picture, possibly a studio copy, is in the York Art Gallery. Another oil sketch, of the same size as the one in York and also on panel, was sold at Sotheby's, London, February 22, 1989, no. 47. Farr (1958) mentions a watercolor copy inscribed "W.E.".
[2012; adapted from Baetjer 2009]
Provenance
G. T. Andrews, York (by 1849–51; his anonymous sale, Christie's, London, June 23, 1849, no. 76, as "Study for the Graces, in a picture of 'Venus attiring'", for £89.5.0, bought in; his sale, Christie's, London, May 31, 1851, no. 80, as "The Graces", for £210 to Hatch); Thomas Mackenzie, Dailuaine House, Carron, Strathspey (until 1902; sale, Christie's, London, May 10, 1902, no. 110, as "Study for 'The Three Graces'", for £39.18.0 to Smith); [Henry Ellis Heyman, London, until 1905; sold to MMA]
Copyright Image
https://images.metmuseum.org
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