The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York is hosting an exhibition dedicated to the greatest Neoclassical sculptor, Antonio Canova.
“Antonio Canova: The Seven Last Works,” on view until April 27, shows seven full-scale plaster models illustrating episodes from the Bible that were to adorn the Tempio Canoviano, the church that Canova built for his hometown of Possagno. The church later became the artist’s mausoleum.
Canova worked on the models, drawing inspiration from ancient sculpture and early Renaissance masters, between December 1821 and April 1822. He died a few months later, leaving his final project, which was to include 32 low reliefs, incomplete.
The models were used to review his compositions before they were transferred into stone, a common sculptural practice for the artist.
Newly restored, the works are on loan to the United States for the first time. Six of the reliefs come from the Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice and one from the Gipsoteca in Possagno.
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