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ANTONIO CANOVA and NAPOLEON by Susan THE NAPOLEONIC HISTORICAL SOCIETY NEWSLETTER Canova Special Issue “Caesar’s Friend”: Antonio Canova and Napoleon, by Susan Jaques 1 Peace 8 Lord Cawdor 10 What do you buy the man who rules everything? 11 The painting that did not go home 12 A close-up of the head from Canova’s Napoleon as Mars the Peacekeeper. A Canova Special Issue? “CAESAR’S FRIEND” ANTONIO CANOVA AND NAPOLEON We already had some minor by Susan Jaques pieces relating to Canova. I was waiting for member Susan Jaques’ new book, The Caesar of This past summer, a new auction sures from Paris was arguably Paris, to come out, as it covers record was set for Antonio Canova Canova’s greatest challenge. Yet, Napoleon’s role in the art world. when his Bust of Peace sold for over over a decade of experience as When Susan kindly offered £UK 5.3 million. The rediscovered unofficial papal envoy had prepared this article, I thought that if we marble was among five Ideal Heads him for the important assignment. bundled it all together, we could created by the sculptor as thank At the same time Canova was have a special issue devoted to you gifts for British support in the modeling portraits of Napoleon and the great artist of the Napoleonic art restitution that followed Napo- his second wife Marie Louise, he period. leon’s defeat. was advocating on behalf of Napo- Retrieving looted Italian art trea- leon’s nemesis, Pope Pius VII. Canova Special Issue Page 1 THE NAPOLEONIC HISTORICAL SOCIETY NEWSLETTER Their complex relationship began foothills of the Dolomites. Born Napoleon wore his fine chestnut in 1797, when then General Napo- in November 1757, Canova was hair long, cut square and covering leon Bonaparte learned that the raised by his paternal grandfather his ears in a style called “dogs neoclassical sculptor was in finan- Pisano, a stone-cutter. At eleven, ears.” In Cairo, Napoleon ordered cial straits. After France’s occupa- Canova was apprenticed to a local his soldiers to follow his example tion of Venice, the new munici- sculptor who arranged for him to and cut their hair short, Roman pality suspended Canova’s pension study drawing, painting, and sculp- style “a la Titus.” for his tribute to the naval hero ture in nearby Venice. Canova returned a few days later Angelo Emo. Eager to be portrayed Lured by Rome’s ancient ruins with clay and modelling tools. He by Europe’s most sought after and monuments, the 22-year-old was granted a handful of meetings artist, Napoleon personally wrote traveled south in 1779. Three years and five sittings with Napoleon – to Canova that August, promising later, Canova’s dramatic Theseus generous for a man who disliked to reinstate his life annuity. and the Minotaur became the talk of posing and refused to sit for painter Napoleon never made good on Rome. He was soon hired to create Jacques-Louis David. During their that promise. Later that year, when a tomb for Pope Clement XIV at informal sessions, Napoleon read he offered Canova a commission to Rome’s Church of the Holy Apos- papers and wrote dispatches from carve a relief portrait of himself for tles. For the high profile commis- an hourglass-shaped desk topped Padua, the sculptor declined, citing sion, Canova turned to the pyramid, with busts of Caesar and Hannibal. health issues and bad roads. In fact, the ancient Egyptian symbol of Napoleon also chatted with José- France’s pillaging of Italy’s master- grief and transcendence. Five years phine and Canova, reportedly pieces and its ceding of Venice later, Canova produced a second calling Canova “Caesar’s friend.” to Austria were deeply upsetting neoclassical funerary monument Keenly aware of his role as papal to the patriotic artist. “I have St. for Pope Clement XIII at St. Peter’s envoy, Canova used the meetings Mark in my heart and nothing in Basilica. to convey Rome’s economic plight the world will change me,” Canova In 1801, the Vatican acquired and the dire financial situation of the pronounced after the millennium- Canova’s monumental Perseus Papal States. According to Canova, old Venetian Republic fell to Napo- for the empty space previously he did not hold back, expressing leon. occupied by Apollo Belvedere, his concern about France’s treat- It was at Caroline and Joachim purloined for the Louvre. The ment of Venice, the “deportation” Murat’s Château de Villiers-la- acquisition launched an important of the famous horses of St. Mark’s, Garenne near Neuilly that Napoleon bond between Canova and Pius and the removal of Rome’s master- saw Canova’s Cupid and Psyche VII. In 1802, Pius named Canova works. The First Consul tolerated and Psyche Revived by Cupid’s Kiss. Inspector General of Antiquities Canova’s complaints, a small sacri- Napoleon’s brother-in-law acquired and Fine Arts for the Papal States, fice for a superb clay portrait bust. the famous pendants after visiting with responsibility for the Vatican On one occasion, Canova returned Canova’s studio during the French and Capitoline Museums. That to the château to find Napoleon occupation of Rome in 1798. At same year, Napoleon summonsed preparing to go hunting. While that time, Canova expressed his Canova to Paris to model his waiting for him to return, Canova anti-Bonapartist sentiment in a portrait bust. Pius urged the reluc- made preliminary sketches for a letter to a friend: “I would happily tant sculptor to go, hoping he could full-length marble portrait. Napo- lose anything, even my life, if by it ease tensions with France’s bold leon expressed a strong prefer- I could help my beloved country, new leader. ence to be portrayed in his mili- for I shall call it thus till my dying In October 1802, Canova’s friend tary uniform, but Canova insisted breath.” Quatremère de Quincy presented that he be sculpted nude, like the Though the new governors of him to Napoleon and Joséphine at heroes and rulers of ancient Greece. French-controlled Rome awarded Saint-Cloud. Canova barely recog- Because of Canova’s celebrity, Canova various honors, he returned nized Napoleon who bore little Napoleon deferred to him, report- for a time to his hometown of resemblance to his earlier portraits. edly saying “We do not impose a Possagno, north of Venice in the Throughout the Italian campaign, law on Genius.” Napoleon would Canova Special Issue Page 2 THE NAPOLEONIC HISTORICAL SOCIETY NEWSLETTER Pauline Borghese as Venus Victrix, 1805-1808, Antonio Canova Borghese Gallery, Rome © Leochen66, Dreamstime.com come to regret that decision. tion of Helen caused the Trojan ence the work in the round. Pauline Back in Rome, while working on War and the flight of Aeneas, son Borghese’s love life added to the Napoleon as Mars the Peacemaker, of Venus, to Italy. The choice of fame of the statue, as did its nudity Canova produced Pauline Borghese Venus Victrix suited both Pauline and sensuality. When asked if she as Venus Victrix. Canova sculpted and her husband Camillo Borghese, minded posing nude in the grand Napoleon’s favorite sister reclining whose family members considered saloon at the Palazzo Borghese and on her side on an embroidered themselves descendants of Aeneas, Canova’s nearby studio, Pauline marble mattress, draped in a sheet Rome’s legendary founder. replied: “Why should I? The studio from the waist down. Resting her Using his signature technique, was heated.” right arm on two pillows, Pauline known as “the last hand,” Canova In 1808, Pauline wrote husband seductively touches the nape of her polished the surface of the finished Camillo in Turin, requesting he neck with the fingers of her right marble, giving it a deep luster and allow Venus Victrix to travel to hand. In her left hand, she holds the the lifelike texture of skin. Canova Paris. Four of Canova’s works, famous golden apple of discord. also heightened the work’s sensu- including his statue of her mother, In the fateful beauty contest, Paris ality by covering Pauline’s skin with Madame Mère Seated, were to be gave Venus the apple after judging a light layer of molten pink wax. displayed for the prestigious Salon her more beautiful than her rival Pauline’s marble mattress rested on at the Louvre, renamed the Musée goddesses. Venus introduced Paris a plaster and wooden Empire-style de Napoleon. Canova began the to the beautiful Helen, wife of bed that hid a revolving mecha- full-length seated portrait of Maria- Sparta’s Menelaus. Paris’s abduc- nism allowing viewers to experi- Letizia Ramolino shortly before Canova Special Issue Page 3 THE NAPOLEONIC HISTORICAL SOCIETY NEWSLETTER accepting the commission for principled Agrippina the Elder or that both these Agrippinas good and Pauline Borghese’s sculpture. her conniving, murderous daughter bad had in common were their truly Canova based the portrait of the Agrippina the Younger? As direct terrible sons. Agrippina the Elder formidable Bonaparte matriarch descendants of Augustus through gave birth to the mad Caligula and on the Capitoline’s famous antique his first wife Scribonia, both Agrip- Agrippina the Younger gave birth to statue of Agrippina (2nd or 4th pinas were key to Rome’s dynastic the equally mad Nero. There were century AD). Canova portrayed succession. not a few critics and commentators Letizia like the ancient female In either case, argues Mary Beard, who felt that had been Canova’s figure, sitting on a curved leg chair, Canova’s Madame Mère Seated was point and that through the imperial her sandaled feet on a footstool, an insult to Napoleon. “If there was mother, Canova’s target was actu- wearing the fashionable classi- an honorable option for Madame ally Napoleon.” 1 cally inspired garb.
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