Antonio Canova Project

The project dedicated to Antonio Canova started in 2012.

It was fully financed by Friends of Venice Italy Inc. and The Venice International Foundation, both non-profit organizations that operate to raise funds for the safeguard of the Venetian cultural and historical heritage. 

Antonio Canova (Possagno 1757 – Venice 1822) is the greatest European artist of the neoclassical period, universally admired and honored by his contemporaries for the aesthetic, poetic and emotional qualities of his art. Venice was where he trained and worked; here he found ideas for his new art and the first clients and promoters of his successful career.

He was also admired in the United States. In 1816 he was commissioned to design the George Washington monument in Raleigh, the capital of North Carolina (this work was lost in the fire that destroyed the Raleigh State House in 1831).