William Etty’s sketch of three women is strikingly similar to a group of the Three Graces in his Toilet of Venus (1835, Puerto Rico, Museo de Arte de Ponce). This suggests that he had already worked out the composition and created this life study to work through the colouristic details. A slightly larger sketch in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York is more heavily worked up, suggesting a subsequent refining of the balance between light and shade that is broadly explored here.