The Three Graces, a masterpiece by Carlo Finelli, goes to the Tefaf in Maastricht

The Roman antiquarian gallery Antonacci Lapiccirella is bringing to the 2025 edition of the Maastricht Tefaf one of the most significant imarmoras groups by Carlo Finelli (Carrara, 1785 - Rome, 1853), who was among the greatest Neoclassical sculptors: it is the Three Graces, already on its way to the Netherlands (the gallery, in recent days, published pictures of the preparation operations for transport on its social channels). The gallery’s asking price is between 400 and 500,000 euros. Finelli, their creator, was an eclectic artist, a proponent of his own interpretation of neoclassicism: his works offered a synthesis that combined the classical ideal of form with the purity of thought that critics recognized in the 14th- and 15th-century primitives. However, the gap between Finelli’s ideal and its realization caused him constant dissatisfaction that led to episodes such as the destruction of his Mars in 1844, a sculpture he had already donated to the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence, which he took it back under the guise of retouching it and then destroyed it. The same fate befell a group of sketches and other marble sculptures such as two sculptures of Venus and Paris. In addition, the artist ordered in his last will the destruction of all the plaster models in his studio, with the exception of the Dancing Hours and Archangel Michael Defeating Lucifer, which are among his masterpieces and which the artist intended to donate to the Academy of Fine Arts in Carrara. It was also by virtue of these episodes that the myth spread of the strangeness of his personality but also that of his independence and brilliance, which led some of his contemporaries to compare him even to Michelangelo.

The Three Graces is one of Carlo Finelli’s most emblematic sculptures and one of his major masterpieces. In 1824, after finishing the marble group of Dancing Hours, perhaps his most famous work, for the Russian Nikolai Demidov (today the work is in the Hermitage Museum), Finelli was able to take up the subject of the Three Graces that both Antonio Canova and Bertel Thorvaldsen had created earlier, albeit in a very different style from Finelli’s version. After Finelli destroyed his first version of the Three Graces, he made a second one, also in plaster, which he destroyed again in 1833. At that point, he decided to work directly on the marble, “alla prima,” that is, without the guidance of a plaster model. This was a very unusual method of working at the time, because there was no room for error or second thoughts: this unorthodox procedure also immediately provoked comparisons with Michelangelo’s working method. However, Finelli never completed this work. It was always hidden from visitors to the studio and became famous only after his death. The Three Graces is a unique case for sculpture of that period: the work is beautifully finished except for the trunk and feet of the tree, which are only partially defined. Only the surface of the three figures awaited a light final polish. Probably the history of the sculptural group and the absence of a plaster model suggested to Finelli’s heirs and students that this was the way the artist wanted the group to be seen, although this was not the usual practice at the time. Moreover, all contemporaries unanimously argued that the “unfinished” nature of the Three Graces greatly increased its appeal because of the delicacy of the style. These factors made it the masterpiece that it is. This is how Giuseppe Checchetelli spoke of it in 1854 in his monograph on Finelli: “And, to tell the truth, this grouping is such a thing that it enchants, nor would I know how to judge whether those unfinished ends take away more than they add to that veil of magic that all envelops this work. You see the three damsels gracefully intertwining their arms without giving themselves any study of the person, because grace has no fictitious vices; you contemplate those naive faces, that transparent serenity of thought, and you rightly exclaim, without them nothing, not even beauty have merit in the world.”

To make the Three Graces, Finelli was directly inspired by ancient statuary, especially with regard to the two figures on either side. The one on the observer’s right assumes the pose of the Apollo with the harp preserved in Rome’s Capitoline Museums, with crossed legs, an outstretched torso, and an entirely similar arm arrangement. On the other side, however, we see a figure reminiscent of Praxiteles’ Satyr at Rest, with his arm resting on his hip. The lightness of movement and the delicacy of the upper body evoke Canova’s contemporary art, although a kind of overall “dignity” separates these figures from Canova’s much more sensual figures than Finelli’s, as well as at the same time also from Thorvaldsen’s much more severe ones. This feature, as anticipated, constitutes the characteristic ideal of Finelli, who knew how to interpret nobility and “grandiose” style even in works of “pleasant subject matter,” imbuing them with a “monumental character,” as a contemporary critic, Quintilio Leoni, observed.

In the earlier Dancing Hours, the motion of the figure eschewed any affectation thanks in part to the philosophical ideals visible in the faces of the hours of the day, with the first figure symbolizing the joy of the morning while the last figure, turning away, the melancholy of the evening. In this second marble group the meditative nobility of the figures, together with their attributes, embodies the same message as the Three Graces in which we understand the powerful civilizing force of poetry on humanity symbolized by the zither but also, and just as importantly, by the emblems of nature’s generosity: “And in observing them one crowned with flowers the other with thorns the third with vines,” Checchetelli wrote, “you persuade yourself that the graces are they of nature, who gladden man and earth with their laughter; who guide sovereignly beautiful with flowers the spring, with harvests the state, with grapes the autumn.”

After Finelli’s death, the Three Graces were inherited by collector Filippo Massani, and upon the latter’s death they passed to the Camuccini family: since then the Three Graces have always remained the property of the Camuccini family. The public was recently able to see them on display at the Dopo Canova exhibition held in Carrara, in Palazzo Cucchiari, in 2017. The work, now, is on the market. Will an Italian museum be able to purchase it?

The Three Graces, a masterpiece by Carlo Finelli, goes to the Tefaf in Maastricht

Warning: the translation into English of the original Italian article was created using automatic tools. We undertake to review all articles, but we do not guarantee the total absence of inaccuracies in the translation due to the program. You can find the original by clicking on the ITA button. If you find any mistake,please contact us.