Standing on a poetic laurel-wreathed plinth, the Graces, attendants of the nature-Goddess Venus, assist in the unveiling of a palm-supported sacred urn, celebrating a 'Sacrifice on the Altar of Love'. A celebrated icon of the Grand Tour, another version of the Three Graces, standing on a triangular plinth and supporting a fruit-basket, was acquired by John, 4th Earl of Darnley (d. 1831) during his 1790 Grand Tour for display in the Hall at Cobham Hall, Kent. It is interesting to note, therefore, that Edme Bouchardon (d. 1762), a French sculptor who trained in Rome, used this design as the inspiration for La Fontaine des Graces in Paris, while Rhighetti incorporated the Borghese Graces in an early nineteenth century centrepiece illustrated in A. Gonzales-Palacios, Il Gusto dei Principi, Milan 1993, vol.ii,p.270, fig. 537
It was to this group of the Three Graces that the shipping agent at Leghorn, responsible for the return of Jonas Brooke's purchases to England, referred in a letter to Elizabeth Brooke (d. 1809):-'No man's urn deserves better to be supported by the Graces than his'. The letter proposed that an 'ornamental alabaster vase', now missing, should be so inscribed in his memory. The 1840 Inventory of the Hall suggests that this proposal was carried out:- "Group of the Graces supporting a ... on pedestal of statuary marble'