The Three Graces

Artist Lucas Cranach the Elder (German, 1472 - 1553)

Date1535

MediumOil on wood panel

DimensionsUnframed: 19 3/8 x 13 9/16 inches (49.21 x 34.45 cm)
Framed: 24 5/16 × 18 9/16 × 2 inches (61.75 × 47.15 × 5.08 cm)

Credit LinePurchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust

Object number57-1

SignedSigned lower left with the artist's heraldic device and dated 1535

On View

On view

Gallery Location

Collections

European Art

Terms

DescriptionAgainst black background, three female nudes standing on parapet and sharing narrow diaphanous textile; left figure in rear view, textile held against left thigh; center, en face, right hand pointing upward, textile over right shoulder; right figure in left profile, long wavy hair streaming to her right, right hand behind back holding textile across left thigh.Exhibition History

Exhibition History

The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, MO, 1959, no. 104.

Anatomy & Art, The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, MO, May 8–June 5, 1960, no. 104.

Symbols in Transformation: Iconographic Themes at the Time of the Reformation, The Art Museum, Princeton University, NJ, March 16–April 13, 1969, no. 2.

Those Beguiling Women, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, September 27–October 30, 1983, no. 12.

Lucas Cranach: Meisterwerke im Zeichen der Schlange, Städelsches Kunstinstitut und Städtische Galerie, November 23, 2007–February 17, 2008; Royal Academy of Arts, London, March 08–June 08, 2008, no. 115, as Die drei Grazien.

Lucas Cranach der Ältere: Meister, Marke, Moderne, Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf, April 8–July 30, 2017.

Perfectly Imperfect: Cranach, Dürer and the Renaissance Nude, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, March 13, 2020–May 31, 2021, no cat.

Gallery Label

The subject of The Three Graces was associated in antiquity with elegance and beauty, and the trio were oftentimes depicted as handmaidens of the goddess Venus. The graces became popular in the Renaissance with a revival of interest in the ancient world and because of the opportunity they represented to accentuate their natural potential for sensuality. Here, Cranach's nudes illustrate this Renaissance interest, but their slender proportions are Gothic. The figures are highlighted against the dark background making their bodies look more sculptural.

Provenance

Possibly in a French collection, by 1901 [1];

Sir Francis Cook, 1st Baronet (1817-1901), Doughty House, Richmond Hill, Surrey, by 1901;

By descent to his son, Sir Frederick Lucas Cook, 2nd Baronet (1844-1920), Doughty House, Richmond Hill, Surrey, 1901-1920;

By descent to his son, Sir Herbert Cook, 3rd Baronet (1868-1939), Doughty House, Richmond Hill, Surrey, 1920-1939;

By descent to his son, Sir Francis Ferdinand Maurice Cook, 4th Baronet (1907-1978), Doughty House, Richmond Hill, Surrey, 1939-1943;

Trustees of the Cook collection, 1943-June 13, 1956;

Purchased from the Trustees of the Cook collection by Thomas Agnew and Sons, London, stock no. J.1836, probably on joint account with F. A. Drey, Ltd., London, June 13, 1956 [2];

Purchased from Agnew by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1956.

NOTES:

[1] An inscription on the back of the painting reads: Ouvrage de Lucas Kranach Peintre Allemand/1535, suggesting the picture may have once been in a French collection.

[2] This painting’s entry in The National Gallery, London, Thomas Agnew and Sons Ltd. Archive, NGA27/1/1, Picture Stock Books, indicates it was a joint purchase between Agnew and another dealer. According to John Somerville, Fine Art Consultant, in a letter to Dena M. Woodall, Project Assistant, May 9, 1997, NAMA curatorial files, the Cook family archive indicates the Cook trustees accepted an offer for the painting from Margaret Drey in May 1956. According to Agnew’s invoice for their sale to NAMA, October 1956, NAMA curatorial files, Agnew purchased the painting from the Cook collection trustees and the frame was acquired from M. H. Drey Ltd., London.

Published References

Francis Cook, Abridged Catalogue of the Pictures at Doughty House, Richmond, Belonging to Sir Frederick Cook, Bart., M.P., Visconde de Monserrate (London: Metchim, 1903), 8.

Francis Cook, A Catalogue of the Paintings at Doughty House, Richmond, and Elsewhere in the Collection of Sir Frederick Cook (London: William Heinemann, 1913), 101.

Maurice W. Brockwell, A Catalogue of the Paintings at Doughty House, Richmond, and Elsewhere in the Collection of Sir Frederick Cook (London, 1915), 3:101.

Maurice W. Brockwell, Abridged Catalogue of the Pictures at Doughty House, Richmond, in the Collection of Sir Herbert Cook, Bart. (London: William Heinemann, 1932), 12.

Max J. Friedländer and Jakob Rosenberg, Die Gemälde von Lucas Cranach (Berlin: Deutscher Verein Für Kunstwissenschaft, 1932), 68, (repro.).

“Accessions of American and Canadian Museums, January–March, 1957,” Art Quarterly 20, no. 2 (Summer 1957): 206, 210, (repro.).

“Recent Acquisition,” Gallery News (William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art; Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts) 24, no. 8 (May, 1957): (repro.).

“Cranach: Die drei Grazien,” Die Weltkunst 27, no. 11 (June 1, 1957): 5, (repro.).

Ross E. Taggart, ed., Handbook of the Collections in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 4^th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1959), 76, 83, 261, (repro.).

“Anatomy & Art: May 8 to June 5, 1960,” Bulletin (The Nelson Gallery and Atkins Museum), 3, no. 1, exh. cat. (1960): 31, 32, (repro.).

Donald Judd, “Kansas City Report,” Arts Magazine 38, no. 3 (December, 1963): 28.

Geoffrey Agnew, Agnew’s, 1817–1967 (London: Bradbury Agnew Press, 1967), (repro.).

Symbols in Transformation: Iconographic Themes at the Time of the Reformation, exh. cat. (Princeton, NJ: Art Museum, Princeton University, 1969), (repro.).

Ross E. Taggart and George L. McKenna, eds., Handbook of the Collections in The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, Missouri, vol. 1, Art of the Occident, 5^th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1973), 100, 259, (repro.).

M. J. Friedländer and J. Rosenberg, The Paintings of Lucas Cranach the Elder, trans. H. Norden and R. Taylor (Ithaca, NY: 1978), 119–20, (repro.).

John D. Morse, Old Master Paintings in North America (New York: Abbeville Press, 1979), 84.

“The Body Female,” Intercom 16, no. 4 (Summer 1983): 4, (repro.).

Ross E. Taggart, Those Beguiling Women: September 27–October 30, 1983, exh. cat. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1983), 6, 16, (repro.).

Ellen R. Goheen, The Collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1988), 16, 42–43, (repro.).

Sharyl Lee Keller Wright, “A Close Examination of Two Cranach Paintings in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: The Three Graces and The Last Judgment” (M.A. thesis, University of Missouri-Kansas City, 1989), 31–69.

Michael Churchman and Scott Erbes, High Ideals and Aspirations: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1933–1993 (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1993), 74.

Roger Ward and Patricia J. Fidler, eds., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection (New York: Hudson Hills Press, in association with Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1993), 129, 151, (repro.).

Burton L. Dunbar, The Collections of The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: German and Netherlandish Paintings, 1450–1600 (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2005), 13, 19, 79–88, (repro.).

Bodo Brinkman, ed., Cranach, exh. cat. (London: Royal Academy of Arts, 2007), 358–59, (repro), as Die drei Grazien.

Gunnar Heydenreich, Daniel Görres, and Beat Wismer, eds., Lucas Cranach der Ältere: Meister, Marke, Moderne, exh. cat. (Düsseldorf: Museum Kunstpalast, 2017).

Information about a particular artwork or image, including provenance information, is based upon historic information and may not be currently accurate or complete. Research on artwork and images is an ongoing process, and the information about a particular artwork or image may not reflect the most current information available to the Museum. If you notice a mistake or have additional information about a particular artwork or image, please e-mail provenance@nelson-atkins.org.