Unchanged by any teller — how the centuries since have seen Aglaea.
The gallery
The Three Graces, from Pompeii (Roman wall fresco)
Unknown (Roman wall-painter), 1st century BC – 1st century AD
Detached from a Pompeian wall in Regio VI, Insula Occidentalis, this Roman fresco shows the three Charites in their canonical embrace — nude, intertwined, the two outer sisters facing the viewer while the central figure turns away, hands resting on her companions' shoulders. The composition descends from a lost Hellenistic group and fixes the iconography of the Graces for all later art. Among the sisters stands Aglaïa (Ἀγλαΐα), 'Splendour' or 'Radiance', the eldest and brightest of the trio whom Hesiod names as the youngest daughter of Zeus and Eurynome and the bride of Hephaestus. Now in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples (inv. 9231).
The Three Graces
Peter Paul Rubens, c. 1630–1635
Rubens's late masterpiece renders the Charites as three full-bodied women linked by a garland in a lush garden, a cornucopia of blossoms above and Hephaestus's fountain spilling water at their feet. Painted for the artist's own collection and now in the Museo del Prado, Madrid, it celebrates the goddesses of grace, beauty and gladness as the embodiment of generous giving. The radiant figure at the center carries the role of Aglaïa, 'Splendour', the brightest Grace and consort of the smith-god — her luminous flesh the painterly equivalent of the dazzling brilliance her Greek name proclaims.
The Three Graces (Le Tre Grazie)
Antonio Canova, 1814–1817
Canova's Neoclassical marble distills the Charites into three nude figures clustered in a single tender knot, heads inclined together and arms entwined over a shared draped column. Carved for John Russell, 6th Duke of Bedford, the group is today shared between the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, and the National Galleries of Scotland. The sisters — named in antiquity as Aglaïa ('Splendour'), Euphrosyne ('Good Cheer') and Thalia ('Festivity') — give beauty, charm and joy to the world; Aglaïa, the eldest and most radiant, the bride of Hephaestus, takes her place at the heart of the embrace.