three graces
ancient ideals
embodied perfection
embracing each other
myth turned into
mirror
Combines an image of three partially nude women photographed by Oscar G. Rejlander (circa 1887) with fragments from the poster art of Alphonse Mucha (1904) and a fragment of the short story Uncle McShane, by Mrs. Alexander, cut from the Victorian literary magazine Atalanta (1894).
The story
The three women are from a photograph by Oscar Gustave Rejlander (1813–1875), a Swedish-born photographer who worked in England. Rejlander is best known for Two Ways of Life, a single picture combined from thirty-two negatives and shown at Manchester in 1857, an early photographic collage. He also made nude studies, mainly for painters to use as reference.
The ornament is from the poster art of Alphonse Mucha (1860–1939). The text is from Uncle McShane, a story by "Mrs Alexander", printed in Atalanta in 1894. Mrs Alexander was Annie French Hector (1825–1902), an Irish novelist who wrote more than forty novels and took her pen name from her husband's first name. Atalanta was a British monthly for girls, founded in 1887 by L. T. Meade and published until 1898.