The Three Fates

In 1713 this panel was in the collection of Grand Prince Ferdinando de' Medici, catalogued as a Michelangelo. It stayed a Michelangelo in the Pitti for two centuries. In 1920 the German art historian Hermann Voss gave it to Francesco Salviati, which is the name on the label today, though not everyone accepts it. Rosso Fiorentino, Pontormo and Jacopino del Conte have each been proposed since.

What the panel shows is not in dispute. Three old women stand shoulder to shoulder against a dark ground, the Fates of classical mythology. Clotho holds the spindle, Lachesis the thread of a human life, Atropos the shears that cut it.

The case for Salviati rests largely on the drapery, which flutters and shifts colour as it turns. The picture hangs in the Hall of Jupiter now. The 1782 inventory of the palace had it in the Hall of Saturn.