Unchanged by any teller — how the centuries since have seen Euphrosyne.
The gallery
The Three Graces (wall painting from Pompeii)
Unknown Roman painter, 1st century CE
A Roman fresco recovered from a house at Pompeii (Regio IX, Insula 2, no. 16) and now in the Naples National Archaeological Museum (inv. 9236). It shows the three Charites — Aglaea (Splendor), Euphrosyne (Mirth), and Thalia (Good Cheer), daughters of Zeus by the Oceanid Eurynome — interlocked nude in the canonical embrace, two facing the viewer with the central figure turned away, arms looped over one another's shoulders. Euphrosyne, whose name means "good cheer" or "merriment," stands among her sisters as the embodiment of the laughter and joy the Graces brought to feasts, dances, and the company of the gods. The composition fixed by this ancient type would be revived again and again from the Renaissance onward.
The Three Graces
Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio), c. 1503–1505
A small panel by Raphael (1483–1520), now in the Musée Condé at Chantilly, painted at the very start of his career and possibly conceived as a companion to his "Vision of a Knight." It renders the three Charites — Aglaea, Euphrosyne, and Thalia — as three nude young women, each holding a golden sphere (often read as the apples of the Hesperides), arranged in the ancient embrace with the central Grace seen from behind. As the daughters of Zeus who personify charm, beauty, and joyful good cheer, the trio became a favored Renaissance emblem of grace and harmonious love; Euphrosyne, the spirit of mirth, takes her gentle place between her sisters in Raphael's serene early classicism.
The Three Graces
Antonio Canova, 1814–1817
A Neoclassical marble group by the Italian sculptor Antonio Canova (1757–1822); this version, commissioned by Empress Joséphine and completed for her son Eugène de Beauharnais, is held in the State Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg (a second version is shared by the V&A and the National Galleries of Scotland). Canova draws the three Charites — Aglaea, Euphrosyne, and Thalia — into a single tender knot of embracing bodies, their heads inclined together and a length of drapery binding them. The daughters of Zeus, attendants of Aphrodite who bestowed beauty, festivity, and good cheer, here become an image of intimate sisterly affection; Euphrosyne, goddess of mirth and gladness, leans into the close triadic embrace at the heart of the group.