After Canova. A pair of impressive white marble lions

The impressive lions now offered for sale are full-scale reproductions of the originals at the base of the monument to Clement XIII in St. Peter's, Rome, executed between 1783 and 1792 by Antonio Canova (1757 - 1821).

On 6 April 1792, some twenty-three years after his death, the great monument to the Venetian Pope, Clement XII, was inaugurated in St. Peter's, Rome. At once admired as a masterpiece, a fitting successor to the Baroque tombs of Bernini and his followers, it has remained one of the most potent symbols of Neo-classicism. It was commissioned from the leading European sculptor, Antonio Canova, by the Pontiff's nephew Prince Abbondio Rezzonico in 1782. Gradually Canova distilled his design through the middle of the decade, abandoning a first intention of a circular mortuary chapel in favour of an elevated tomb monument surmounted by a life-size figure of the Pope at prayer. In concept not so very different from his earlier monument to Clement XIV in Santi Apostoli in Rome. What set the monument apart were the three large independent figures of the Pope, Religion and sorrowing Angel and, above all, the great guardian lions at the base on either side of the blank door of the tomb chamber itself.

The immediate admiration of the tomb and in particular the power and beauty of the lions themselves led to their incorporation in further tomb sculptures. Canova himself used the idea not only on his design for the Venetian Francesco Pesaro but also memorably in the great pyramid tomb to Marie Christina of Austria (Augustinerkirche, Vienna). Copies were made in marble, terracotta and bronze in all sizes to meet the demands of the grand tourists. In England the most overt successor to Canova's grand conception was to be Landseer's great lions at the foot of Nelson's column in Trafalgar Square.

Other reproductions can be found at Chatsworth, where William  Spencer Cavendish, 6th Duke of Devonshire (1790-1858) resided. He was one of the leading British collectors of marble statuary during the first half of the nineteenth century. Those reproductions were executed from plaster casts taken from the originals in Rome. They were placed in similar positions to the pair at St. Peter's facing eachother and backing the wall.