The Three Graces

This figure group of the Three Graces is made by Giacomo Marchino (Marchini) di Campertogno in 1823 in Italy, probably in Rome or Turin. Although made shortly after Canova's celebrated reinterpretation of the subject, Marchino's Three Graces is a subtle reworking of the antique marble group in the Piccolomini Library in Siena Cathedral, or possibly the heavily restored version of the group in the Villa Borghese in Rome, now in the Louvre.

Marchino (1785-1841) trained, like his brother Giuseppe Marchino under the ivory sculptor Giuseppe Maria Bonzanigo (1745-1820), who left him his studio in Turin. He specialised in small-scale reductions in ivory of antique sculptures, which were apparently popular amongst travellers passing through Turin.