Pendant ce temps, chez Antonio Canova
La vie entière1775–1800
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.
1792
