The Three Fates, Costume Designs (c. 1534): Art, History and Details

The Three Fates, Costume Designs (c. 1534) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Pierre Milan (French); Rosso Fiorentino (Italian, 1494–1540).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

This engraving reproduces a trio of costume designs by Rosso Fiorentino. They were likely meant for a masquerade ball held at the court of King Francis I. Each figure represents one of the Three Fates, the female deities in Greek and Roman religion who controlled human destiny, often symbolized by cloth or thread—to indicate the spinning of human life. Here we see them holding (from left to right) wool, thread, and flax. Pierre Milan made a number of prints after the designs of Rosso Fiorentino. However, unlike the etchers working at the chateau of Fontainebleau, Milan worked as a professional engraver in Paris. His works have a cleaner, more polished look to them than the more experimental prints made at the chateau itself. Milan and his contemporaries in Paris formed an important group of printmakers who helped spread the Fontainebleau style. As professional printmakers with ties to the publishing industry, their works were printed in large numbers, unlike the rarer Fontainebleau etchings.

Object facts

• Title: The Three Fates, Costume Designs
• Date: c. 1534
• Creator attribution: Pierre Milan (French); Rosso Fiorentino (Italian, 1494–1540)
• Culture: Italy
• Type: Print
• Technique: engraving
• Dimensions: Sheet: 25.5 x 42.6 cm (10 1/16 x 16 3/4 in.)
• Collection: PR - Engraving
• Department: Prints
• Accession number: 1984.71

Collection credit

Gift of The Print Club of Cleveland

Further reading listed by the museum

• Turner, Evan H. “The Year in Review for 1984.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 72, no. 2 (April 1985): 163–207.
• Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland Art: The Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine. Vol. 37 no. 06, Summer

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.