The three Graces 

Antonio Paoletti painted this genre scene, “The Three Graces,” at an unknown date. It depicts a painter at work in his boat, painting a picture of three young women while children look on and the women pose. Paoletti was a Venetian painter and professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice. This image is less concerned with high art and more interested in the spaces where art and everyday life overlap. Note how Paoletti sets up the painting to examine class boundaries. The artist and the children, both likely working class, depend on the patronage of the upper classes to survive. Consider the ways that Paoletti and the figures depicted perform the idea of Venice. The painting is replete with signifiers of Venice as a cultural capital and tourist destination. The sailboats, the architecture in the distance, even the classical title of the painting serve to reinforce a Venetian cultural identity for the viewer. To understand this painting better, we might look at the histories of Venetian art academies and of tourism in Venice.