France · c. 1768–78 · unglazed porcelain
A design
acquires a body.
Love is held aloft by three figures. In porcelain, a composition also becomes a physical arrangement of weight, contact and support.
Look / Try / Return to the object
How does a composition hold itself up?
Complete supplied image
One complete photograph. The back and unseen sides remain unknown.
The record
Keep the qualification
The maker credit and the museum’s explanation do not have identical certainty. The catalogue names Boucher; the description says “likely.” Our story retains both instead of turning an attribution into a proven source drawing.
Artologium reading
A composition in contact
Our close reading follows the visible arms, shoulders and upward movement. The interest is no longer only where figures sit in a picture. Bodies appear to hold other bodies, and the gaps between them become part of the form.
Artologium reading
The limits of a photograph
A single view cannot explain the back, the full manufacture or the object’s structural behavior. We can look closely at this view while leaving those questions open. The untouched source image remains one action away. A related Boucher composition survives at the Louvre as MI 1023. Its record also notes a later engraving. This opens a research path through paintings and prints; it does not establish the exact design used for this porcelain group.
The evidence stays with the story
What we know.
What remains open.
Supported relationship
Cleveland credits the Sèvres figure group after a design by François Boucher; its commentary says it was likely modeled after his designs.
Read the institution record ↗Creator credit and description; preserve the qualification “likely”.
The boundary
The exact source design and the object’s unseen sides are not supplied. The observation overlays locate features in this photograph; no rotation or 3D model is simulated.
Surviving material: Ceramic (soft-paste biscuit porcelain) · Manufacturing technique: Molded and modeled porcelain. Our observation controls and diagrams are labeled editorial studies. Source images are unmarked in the viewer.
The research behind this view
Follow the evidence.
AI-assisted institutional source review and original close reading; independent specialist review pending.
Research version pattern-boucher.2 · checked 2026-10-24 · independent specialist review pending.
Read the shared research record ↗Sources, qualifications & review notes
Figure Group of Love Carried by the Three Graces ↗
The Cleveland Museum of Art · Creator credit and description; preserve the qualification “likely”.
Cleveland credits the Sèvres figure group after a design by François Boucher; its commentary says it was likely modeled after his designs.
The exact source design and the object’s unseen sides are not supplied. The observation overlays locate features in this photograph; no rotation or 3D model is simulated.
Checked 2026-10-24 · source-text. Official institution API fields reviewed, including attribution qualifiers and dimensions.
Les trois Grâces supportant l’Amour, MI 1023 ↗
Musée du Louvre · Title, date and Historique de l’œuvre: Simonet engraving, 1769
The Louvre records a 1765 Boucher composition with the Three Graces supporting Love and a later engraved reproduction.
Neither this record nor the Cleveland record establishes this painting as the exact model for Cleveland’s porcelain. No Louvre image is reproduced.
Checked 2026-10-24 · source-text. Read the official Louvre object record. Related composition retained as a research lead, not promoted to an exact model or a cleared image.
Why this work appears in these filters
- motif / Figure
- Artologium visual observation · Complete supplied photograph; authored visual observation · reviewed 2026-10-24
- repeat structure / Figure group
- Artologium visual observation · Complete supplied photograph; authored visual observation · reviewed 2026-10-24
- material / Ceramic
- Institution record · Object title, attribution, medium / technique and support fields; Creator credit and description; preserve the qualification “likely”. · reviewed 2026-10-24
- technique / Molded and modeled porcelain
- Institution record · Object title, attribution, medium / technique and support fields; Creator credit and description; preserve the qualification “likely”. · reviewed 2026-10-24
Continue into the collection / Catalogue records & comparisons
Inspect the objects in the catalogue.
Figure Group of Love Carried by the Three Graces
The Cleveland Museum of Art · 1966.235. Open the full work, museum attribution, material and dating.
Fountain with Two Tritons Blowing Conch Shells
A drawing by François Boucher in Cleveland’s collection, showing his two-dimensional graphic line before workshop translation into porcelain.
A different kind of connection
From one attributed design relationship to models identified as a wider tradition.