The Three Graces (1786): Art, History and Details

The Three Graces (1786) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Jean François Janinet (French, 1752–1814); Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini (Italian, 1675–1741).

The work and its context

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

Since ancient times, art critics had praised painters for their ability to portray subjects so lifelike that they might be mistaken for the real thing. The mastery of printing techniques that produced full-color images like this one featuring female nudes with remarkably naturalistic skin gave French printmakers new capabilities that for centuries had been the exclusive domain of painters.

Object facts

• Title: The Three Graces
• Date: 1786
• Creator attribution: Jean François Janinet (French, 1752–1814); Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini (Italian, 1675–1741)
• Culture: France
• Type: Print
• Technique: Color wash-manner etching and engraving
• Dimensions: Platemark: 44 x 32 cm (17 5/16 x 12 5/8 in.); Sheet: 50.5 x 33.5 cm (19 7/8 x 13 3/16 in.)
• Collection: PR - Lavis manner
• Department: Prints
• Accession number: 1977.94

A detail from the museum

In addition to his work in printmaking, Jean-François Janinet was an amateur physicist and experimented with traveling by hot air balloon.

Collection credit

Gift of Moselle Taylor Meals

Further reading listed by the museum

• Lee, Sherman E. “The Year in Review for 1977.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 65, no. 1 (1978).

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.