L'Amour et Psyché debout

1775–1800

Shows his statues by candlelight

In the last quarter of the eighteenth century it became fashionable to view galleries at night by torchlight, and Canova seized on the fad: he displayed his works in his studio by candlelight and finished the statues by candlelight with special tools, softening the transitions between the parts of the nude. He then rubbed the marble with pumice, sometimes for weeks or months, and if need be with tripoli and lead.

1790–1795

The monument to Titian is never built

In 1790 he began work on a pyramid-shaped tomb for Titian in the church of the Frari, but by 1795 the project was abandoned for lack of funds. Canova reused the idea for the tomb of Archduchess Maria Christina in the Augustinian church in Vienna.

1790s

Declines Catherine the Great’s invitation

News of Canova’s work reached Russia, and Empress Catherine II tried to summon the sculptor to her court; he politely declined the honourable invitation and, in thanks, made a second version of “Cupid and Psyche”, now in the Hermitage in St Petersburg.

1791–1818

Honorary member of many academies in Europe and America

Canova was elected an honorary member of many academies: Florence (1791), Stockholm (1796), Verona (1803), Venice (1804), Siena (1805), Lucca (1806), St Petersburg (1804), Geneva (1804), Denmark (1805), Graz (1812), Marseille (1813), Monaco (1814), New York (1817), Antwerp and Vilnius (1818), and also Philadelphia.

1796

So many commissions that he lacks hands

In these years Canova was literally swamped with commissions: in 1796 he confessed to Selva that if he had several hands, all of them would be busy.

1797–1799

Leaves Rome: Vienna, then Possagno

With the dawn of the Napoleonic era Canova’s position grew difficult: he lost many powerful patrons. In 1797 he went to Vienna (by other accounts, also to Prague, Dresden, Berlin and Munich), a year later returned to Possagno for a year, and then went back to Rome, which he came to regard as the only city suited to his artistic ambitions.