The Three Fates: Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos

Jan Muller

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Muller made six engravings after Cornelis; and, impressions of four are in the Met. In addition to the present work they include Cain Killing Abel (56.597.4), Arion on a Dolphin (56.597.5) and The Fight Between Ulysses and Irus (56.597.6). According to Greek and Roman mythology, the Three Fates were goddesses who determined the course of human lives and were traditionally portrayed as women spinning wool. Muller shows them seated together in a rocky landscape, overlooking a barren plain with a few buildings in the far distance. In the center is Clotho (Greek for ‘the spinner’), spinning the thread of life for all mortals; at the right is Lachesis (‘the apportioner’), measuring out the thread -- determining the length of a mortal’s life; and at the left, Atropos (‘she who cannot be turned’), cutting the thread, signaling the moment of death.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.

Metropolitan Museum of Art