The Three Graces

In 1607 the papal treasury confiscated more than 100 paintings from Giuseppe Cesari, the successful Roman painter known as the Cavalier d'Arpino, and they went to Cardinal Scipione Borghese, the pope's nephew. For decades this small canvas was thought to have arrived with that haul. More recent research proposes a quieter route, the collection of a Roman prelate, Monsignor Torquato Perotti, where the picture was already known as Salimbeni's and was praised in a madrigal by the poet Antonio Bruni, printed in Rome in 1633. What is certain is that by 1693 it hung in the Borghese palace, listed as a work of Annibale Carracci. The inventory describes it plainly, three nude women embracing, a cupid in flight shooting arrows and another asleep. That sleeping cupid has his quiver propped against the rock beside him.