Raphaël’s The Three Graces in Chantilly

Guide Mathieu Deldique talks us through this most famous of all the works at Chantilly – a small work measuring just 17cm2 but one of exceptional intensity. It’s one of the rare secular works of Raphaël’s Florentine period (1504-05), during which he was trained by his two great masters, Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci. He was fêted for it in his lifetime and indeed it become one of the highest achievements of classic aesthetics in the Renaissance. There are several interpretations of the work.

‘All art, perfection and harmony is present in this painting by Raphaël’, explains Deldique. These three young naked beauties reveal themselves through their graceful, lightly swaying movement within a tranquil landscape, an idyllic slice of nature with soft, filtered light that emphasises the perfection of their bodies and unifies them. The art of Raphaël is a search for harmony, one he approaches via several preliminary drawings and sketches in order to achieve a perfect painting. This is absolute harmony, says Deldique, adding, ‘touched by grace, Raphaël was for a long time nicknamed ‘the divine painter’.”

This three young muses inspired more of our most famous painters and sculptors, including Rubens, Fragonard, Botticelli and even Picasso, who chose large-scale Cubist works to portray them in his own way.