The Three Graces
ARTIST: Jacob Matham (Dutch, 1571 – 1631), after Hendrick Goltzius (Dutch, 1558 – 1617)
DATE: 1588
TECHNIQUE: Engraving
DIMENSIONS: Image: 28.9 X 20.5 cm, Platemark: 30 x 21.1 cm, Paper Size: 31 x 21.9 cm
STATE: II/III
WATERMARK: Partial, indecipherable
INSCRIPTION: Lower left: “HG. Inuent.”; in margin below image, lower left: “Cur nudæ Charites? et mundo orbata iuuenta?/Hic quia fucus abest, est ubi uerus Amor.”; lower right: “Munda carnet mundo, nullo se tegmine velant,/Sese ornata sat est intemerata charis”.; lower right corner: 8.”
CATALOGUE REFERENCE: New Hollstein Dutch 355 I/II, Bartsch 285, Hollstein Dutch 244
CREDIT LINE: Gift of Barbara P. Taft & Hugh M. Taft ‘44
PROVENANCE: Purchased from Lucien Goldschmidt, Inc., 1980
OBJECT NUMBER: 1996.061
Dancing upon the heavy clouds, the female figures in Jacob Matham’s The Three Graces stand suspended in the middle of their circular ritual. The three Graces of Greek mythology represented beauty, nature, and human creativity. They were traditionally depicted as seen in Matham’s print, with the central figure viewed from behind and her companions at her sides in profile. The Graces pose in the nude with their arms encircling each other, placing laurel wreaths upon one another’s intricately braided heads. Consistent with Mannerism, an artistic style from the 16th- and 17th-centuries, the goddesses’ bodies have peculiar and unrealistic proportions. Their dainty facial features contrast with their excessively muscular torsos and elongated limbs. Despite their twisted angles, Matham’s use of light and shadow emphasizes the graceful geometries in their humanoid forms.
Matham reproduced the composition of this print from a work by his mentor and stepfather Hendrick Goltzius, a fellow Dutch Mannerist printmaker. He also applies Goltzius’ engraving techniques, creating flesh and fabric with a series of swelling and tapering lines. Much like other Mannerist works, the main grouping of figures is placed before a background that appears both flat and infinite, compressing space.
As the small number “8” in the lower right hand corner demonstrates, this work is the eighth part of a print series which includes Minerva and Mercury, entitled Mythological and Allegorical Subjects. Only the second state, or artist’s edition, of the plate includes this number, suggesting that this impression was pulled from the second state rather than the first.
Written by Cicely Bernhard, edited by Simone Edgar Holmes
Bibliography
Kok, Jan Piet Filedt, Marjolein Leesberg, edited by Ger Luijten. The New Hollstein Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings, and Woodcuts 1450-1700. The De Gheyn Family. 2 vols. Rotterdam: Sound and Vision Publishers, 2000.
Perny, Michèle. “The Three Graces.” Louvre. Accessed June 26, 2020. https://www.louvre.fr/en/oeuvre-notices/three-graces.
