Antonio Canova

plaster, 185 x 80 x 60 cm

This work in plaster is a cast of the celebrated group of Adonis and Venus which Canova gave to the heirs of his first patron Giovanni Falier as a token of his gratitude.

Carved by Canova without a specific commission between 1789 and 1794, the marble group was purchased by Marquis Francesco Berio di Salza for his palazzo in Naples, where it proved to be immensely popular. On the Marquis’s death, the group was sold to Colonel Guillaume Fabre, and after returning to Canova’s workshop for a few minor alterations, it was shipped to Switzerland, where it can be seen to this day in the Musée d’Art et d’Histoire in Geneva. The group was instantly hailed as a masterpiece of Canova’s “graceful” genre together with his Psyche Revived by Cupid's Kiss, prompting his contemporaries to liken him to Praxiteles and praising his skill in merging the natural with the ideal, and psychological expression with technical prowess based on the use of different tools in combination with one another.