The Allure of the Three Graces
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by Diane DeBlois
Designers love to group figures in three’s. This could be a reference to the Three Graces of Ancient Greece (Aglaia, Euphrosyne and Thalis – or brightness, joyfulness and bloom). Or the three fine arts: music, painting, literature. Or the three could be the Fates deciding the length of our life: Clotho (with her spindle), Lachesis (with her measuring device) and Atropos (with her shears). Christianity invokes Faith, Hope and Charity; we divide our sense of time into Past, Present and Future.
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Figure 1
1840s 3 graces engraved on a coated stock callng card.
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Figure 2
1860s engraving incorporating the figures of the fine arts by D.L. Glover to advertise Dickinson & Co. Boston.
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Figure 3
1864 photograph by John Payson Soule of a painting of Past, Present and Future, mounted on a carte de visite.
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Figure 4
1870s chromolithographed design for a French mantle clock with figures of the three graces.
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Figure 5
A ‘black face’ caricature appears as number 49 in a set, overprinted for Wright’s Indian Vegetable Pills.
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Figure 6
The same Little Maids advertising Thomson’s patent corsets
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Figure 7
1880s – Gilbert and Sullivan’s hit musical drama, The Mikado, inspired several versions of the Three Little Maids from School
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Figure 8
1880s a chromolithographed trade card of the Christian Graces.
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Figure 9
1880s trade card satire of the Three Graces to advertise Fairbanks Lard.
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Figure 10
1882 embossed cover to a theater program in Munich.
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Figure 11
1880s stock trade card of the three graces on skates.
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Figure 12
1890s chromolithographed trade card of the three graces spinning on a top, overprinted for Pillsbury flour with an appropriate slogan.
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Figure 13
1890s chromolithographed Christmas card – a blonde, a brunette, and a red-haired child, copyright 1891 by Donaldson Brothers NY.
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Figure 14
1902 New Year’s card, incorporating the photographed heads of three Elks brothers.
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Figure 15
1910s screen-printed counter card advertising Florio Marsala wine, with dancing graces by the artist Mappiello.
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Figure 16
1939 promotional photograph of the New York World’s Fair sculpture that formed the nomen to the largest sundial in the world: “Time and Fates of Man” by Paul Manship.
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Figure 17
1972 an Italian postage stamp honoring the sculptor Canova.