Workshop of Antonio Canova (Possagno 1757-1822 Venice) circa 1820

Canova, often regarded as the greatest Neoclassical artist, modelled his first bust of Beatrice, Dante's beloved, in plaster in 1818 (now in Possagno). Shortly thereafter, the marble was completed and given to Count Leopoldo Cicognara and his wife, Lucia Fantinati, in gratitude for their work on the biography of Canova (this bust later passed into the collection of the Princess Giovanelli, Venice in 1922).

Canova was so pleased with his composition that other versions of Beatrice were produced between 1819 and 1822. Cicognara (op. cit.) records a marble Beatrice made for Cavalier Stephan Graf Szechevj of Vienna in 1819, which by 1936 was in the castle Negycenk. However, the subsequent history of both the Cicognara and Szechvj busts has remained unknown. Quatremère de Quincy (op.cit.) refers to a bust in the collection of Count Rasponi, Ravenna but Hugh Honour noted (in written communication) that this is an error perpetuated by later writers. Hubert (op. cit.) further mentions a marble in the Museum of Archangelo, formerly the Youssoupov castle.

A substantial part of Canova's sculptural production was dedicated to the realization of portraits of either real or ideal persons. The latter category, the testi ideali, as Canova called it, is a type which the sculptor developed towards the end of his life and made his own. The bust of Beatrice seems to have been one of the most popular of Canova's testi ideali.

It is not possible to determine whether the present sculpture is one of the undocumented marble versions recorded above. It comes from a Swiss private collection and was traditionally believed to have been acquired in Austria, but there is no firm documentary evidence that it is the Szechevj version of 1819 and it may well have been produced for another patron.

RELATED LITERATURE

Leopold Cicongnara, Biographia di Antonio Canova, Venice, 1823, pp.69-70;

Antoine Quatremére de Quincy, Canova et ses Ouvrages ou Memoires Historiques, Paris, 1834, p.317;

Vittoria Malamani, Memoire del Conte Cicongara tratte dai Documenti Generali, Venice, 1888, vol.II, p.193;

Vittoria Malamani, Un'amicizia di Antonio Canova (Lettere del Canova al Conte Cicognara), Citta di Castello, 1890, pp.155,158,166,168;

Gerard Hubert, La Sculpture dans l'Italie Napoléanienne, Paris, 1964, p.474, no. 16; Elena Bassi, Antonio Canova a Possagno, Treviso, 1972, p.93, no. 235;

G. Pavanello and Mario Praz, L'Opera completa del Canova, I Classici dell'Arte, Milan, 1976, nos. 289, 290, 338;

Fred Licht, Canova, New York, 1983, pp.126-130;

Gian Lorenzo Mellini, Canova. Saggi di Filologia e di ermeneutica, Milan, 1999, pp.139-146.