Attributed to Ernesto Gazzeri (Italian, 1866-1965): A carved alabaster figural group of the Three Graces

After Antonio Canova (Italian, 1757-1822)

Footnotes

*Ernesto Gazzeri is known to have signed his works 'E.Gazzeri. Studio O Andreoni Roma'.

Born in Modena in 1866, Ernesto Gazzeri later moved to Rome where, inspired by his classical surroundings, he became a marble sculptor of repute. Known for sculptural portraits and funerary monuments, he particularly remembered for his late masterpiece, a monument to Tommaso Campanella modelled in 1923 in Stilo, Italy, although he also executed genre works and mythological subjects as well as copying antique works and previous masters.

The original monumental figural group of the 'Three Graces' by the acclaimed Neoclassical sculptor Canova depicts the daughters of Zeus and the sea nymph Euronyme and the handmaidens of Venus and companions of Apollo. The three mythological figures depict Euphrosyne, Aglaea and Thalia representing youth, mirth, and elegance and also the three stages of love - Beauty, arousing Desire, leading to Fulfilment. The origins of the group lie in 4th century BC Greek sculpture where the virtuoso sculptor Praxiteles is believed to have modified one of his iconic marble Venuses and replicated her two further times. The theme continued through the Hellenistic period and was perhaps best popularised in third century-style Pompeiian frescoes, the most famous of which - from the house of Titus Dentatus Panthera - is in the National Archaeological Museum, Naples.

In 1812, Canova modified the composition from the antique prototypes by twisting the central figure, so that she would face the onlooker, and by drawing the sisters closer together, in a warmer and more seductive embrace. The sculptor's first group of The Three Graces was commissioned by Empress Josephine in 1812. Completed after her death in 1816 and taken to Monaco by her son, Eugène de Beauharnais, the marble group then became the property of the Duke of Leuchtenburg and was transported to St. Petersburg, where it is now kept in the Hermitage. In 1815, John Russell, the 6th Duke of Bedford, commissioned a second version from Canova. This marble version which is slightly smaller and varies in some details was completed in 1817 and installed in Woburn Abbey two years later. It was acquired in 1994 jointly by the V&A, London, and the National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh.