Canova, Antonio (äntô`nyō känô`vä), 1757–1822, Italian sculptor. He was a leading exponent of the neoclassical school whose influence on the art of his time was enormous. Canova's monumental statues and bas-reliefs are executed with extreme grace, polish, and purity of contour. His first important commission was the monument (1782–87) to Clement XIV in the Church of the Apostles, Rome, followed by that to Clement XIII (completed 1792) in St. Peter's. He then received numerous major commissions from many countries. An admirer of Napoleon, Canova executed a bust of the emperor from life and several other portraits, including two where Napoleon is represented nude in the guise of a Roman emperor. His statue (1820) of George Washington for the statehouse at Raleigh, N.C. (destroyed), was dressed in Roman armor. Canova's memorabilia, consisting of sketches, casts, a few oil paintings, and a voluminous correspondence, are divided between the Gipsoteca in Possagno, his birthplace, and the Civic Museum in Bassano.

Canova, Antonio

(born , Nov. 1, 1757, Possagno, Republic of Venice—died Oct. 13, 1822, Venice) Italian sculptor. Apprenticed to a sculptor at an early age, he opened his own studio in Venice by 1775. In 1778–79 he produced his first important sculpture, Daedalus and Icarus; the figures were so realistic that he was accused of making plaster casts from live models. He settled in Rome in 1779 and became strongly influenced by Classical antiquity. Among his most important commissions were the tombs of two popes, Clement XIII and Clement XIV. In 1802 he became court sculptor to Napoleon I in Paris. In 1816 Pope Pius VII awarded him the title of marquis of Ischia for arranging the return of Italian art looted by the French. Canova also painted portraits and re-creations of paintings discovered at Pompeii and Herculaneum. He dominated European sculpture around the turn of the century and was of primary importance in the development of the Neoclassical style in sculpture (see Classicism and Neoclassicism).