Antonio Canova

[RobinPilot]

The sculpture by Antonio Canova, “Recumbent Magdalene”, was one of his later works and was bought by the second Lord Liverpool when the latter was Prime Minister. He paid a great deal for it.

My question is: where is that sculpture now?

[capybara]

Hermitage, St Petersburg.

(ETA-- I am assuming you meant penitent (typical) rather than recumbent? (not so typical of a Magdalene) I may be wrong, in which case apologies)

[capybara]

Ah, actually. . . it is a different one. Sorry. 1822. . .

[capybara]

Ok, this might be a hard nut to crack. It MIGHT be the one at Gipsoteca Canoviana, Possagno, Veneto, but the Gipsoteca’s site sucks and I can’t find any more info on that object.
http://www.artandarchitecture.org.uk/images/conway/8e43154d.html

Otherwise. . . a Canova scholar in 1972 (Hugh Honour, “Canova’s Studio Practice-II: 1792-1822.” The Burlington Magazine, Vol. 114, No. 829 (Apr., 1972), pp. 214-229) reported that he couldn’t find out where Liverpool’s version was.

[APB]

According to the entry on Canova in the New Grove (as incorporated into Oxford Art Online), the marble version is untraced, but the Gipsoteca Canoviana has the plaster model. Which is basically what capybara has said, but with a slightly more up-to-date cite.

[cailindeas]

There is an article in the Irish Times a couple of weeks ago (http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2012/1217/1224327925419.html) reporting that a Penitent Magdalene sculpture is on exhibition in The Greville Arms hotel in Mullingar (in Ireland), which is identical to the Canova Magdalene in the State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg, Russia.

Could this be the missing Magdalene sculpture which was made for the British Prime Minister, Robert Jenkinson?

[Boyo_Jim]

I found an online catalog of “The Tears of Eros” exhibit, which has a pic of the plaster version here, and as others have already noted, cite the Museo e Gipsoteca Antonio Canova, Possagno, as the source.

[machistorystudent]

In 1818 Antonio Canova was commissioned to do a sculpture for Lord Liverpool, the British Prime Minister. Canova chose the recumbent Magdalene because he thought the prime minister “would prefer a serious theme”. However, the Duchess of Devonshire, knowing her brother-in-law Lord Liverpool, thought rather differently and wrote to Sir Thomas Lawrence (a painter, who was a personal friend of Canova and the Duchess) "she wrote firmly in 1819 that ‘Canova must not do too holy a figure for Lord Liverpool, who is a great admirer of female beauty’” [cite: Biographies: British Prime-Ministers: Earl of Liverpool, Robert Jenkins, www.britishempire.co.uk]

In Oct 1819 Thomas Moore saw a cast of the Magdalene in Canova’s studio in Rome. He found her “a most touching thing; beauty emaciated, and an attitude full of humility and sorrow: the best of all the Magdalens I have seen.” [cite: Moore, Memoirs, Journal and Correspondence of Thomas Moore]

In 1820 Canova in a personal letter to the painter Sir Thomas Lawrence, dated Dec 16, 1820 wrote that “The marble of the Magdalen, with which I am preceding with great diligence and solitude, is also very beautiful and perfect.” [cite: The life and correspondence of Sir Thomas Lawrence, Kt]

In 1822 an excerpt from The Volume of Walpole Society says “Chantrey was also at this point charged with installing a marble statue of the Penitent Magdalen for Lord Liverpool, purchased from Canova and completed in 1822 (see letter from Chantrey to G. Bedford, c. 1822, V.&A. Library)” [extract from The Volume of Walpole Society, Volume 56, Page 169]

An excerpt from Sacred and Legendary Art 1857 says “Penitent Magdalene. [This statue was executed in 1822, for the Earl of Liverpool]”. [cite: Sacred and Legendary Art 1857, Volume 1, Page 370 By Anna Jameson]

It is clear to me that it was a penitent Magdalene that was sculptured for Lord Liverpool and not a recumbent Magdalene. However, I would agree that a cast of the recumbent Magdalene was made, but this marble sculpture was not created at the time. It was changed at request of the Duchess of Devonshire (see above).

It is obvious from above that the recumbent Magdalene marble statue was not completed at the time. So I would suggest rephrasing your question to ‘where is this Penitent Magdalene sculpture now?’

I would be glad of any opinions on this subject.

[APB]

@machistorystudent

In Oct 1819 Thomas Moore saw a cast of the Magdalene in Canova’s studio in Rome. He found her “a most touching thing; beauty emaciated, and an attitude full of humility and sorrow: the best of all the Magdalens I have seen.” [cite: Moore, Memoirs, Journal and Correspondence of Thomas Moore].

The problem with that quote is that six days later, on 6 November 1819, Moore again visited Canova.

Sat to Jackson; then went with him and Chantrey to Canova, who is sitting to Jackson for Chantrey. The great sculptor a most interesting person, full of all the life of youth, and with the simplicity ever attendant upon genius. Took me to see his last Magdalen, which is divine: she is lying recumbent in all the abandonment of grief; and the expression of her face, and the beauty of her figure (which is not at all so wasted as that of the kneeling Magdalen), are perfection.

http://archive.org/stream/memoirsjournalco03moor (pp. 64-5)

So Canova then had two different Magdalen statues in his studio. The first, which was what Moore saw on 31 October, was ‘a cast of his Magdalen that is at Paris’ (p. 56). In other words, that was a cast, presumably in plaster, of the kneeling statue that Canova had made some years previously, no doubt kept as a record of that earlier work. There is no suggestion that Canova was working on a new version of that statue. The second was the recumbent statue, which was more recent and evidently at an advanced stage of completion. So the marble statue of the Magdalen in Canova’s studio at the time when he is known to have been working on the statue for Lord Liverpool was a recumbent one.

@machistorystudent

An excerpt from Sacred and Legendary Art 1857 says “Penitent Magdalene. [This statue was executed in 1822, for the Earl of Liverpool]”. [cite: Sacred and Legendary Art 1857, Volume 1, Page 370 By Anna Jameson]

No, it doesn’t say that, as you appear to have selectively quoted that passage. Here’s what it says in full.

The well-known " Dying Magdalene " of Canova has the same merits and defects as his Penitent Magdalene. [This statue was executed in 1822, for the Earl of Liverpool. Engraved by Henry Moses.]

(The numerous earlier editions of Jameson’s Sacred and Legendary Art don’t include the statements in square brackets. But they do appear in this 1890 edition (at p. 370), being presumably one of the additions by Estelle M. Hull.)

So this is instead saying that it was the ‘Dying Magdalene’, not the ‘Penitent Magdalene’, that was commissioned for Lord Liverpool. The engraving by Henry Moses will be the one at the end of his Works of Antonio Canova (1849), volume I.

The works of Antonio Canova, in sculpture and modelling, engraved in outline...

That is recognisably the statue of which there is the cast in the Gipsoteca Canoviana. Moreover, the contents list of Moses’ book lists ‘1819 A recumbent Statue of the Magdalen, executed in marble, for the Earl of Liverpool; completed 1822.’

[machistorystudent]

Thanks for the response APB and for giving this some consideration. However, I am convinced that the Magdalene that was sculptured for Lord Liverpool was a Penitent Magdalene, and not a Recumbent Magdalene.

@APB

So Canova then had two different Magdalene statues in his studio. The first, which was what Moore saw on 31 October, was ‘a cast of his Magdalene that is at Paris’ (p. 56). In other words, that was a cast, presumably in plaster, of the kneeling statue that Canova had made some years previously, no doubt kept as a record of that earlier work. There is no suggestion that Canova was working on a new version of that statue. The second was the recumbent statue, which was more recent and evidently at an advanced stage of completion. So the marble statue of the Magdalene in Canova’s studio at the time when he is known to have been working on the statue for Lord Liverpool was a recumbent one.

I agree that it is possible that Canova had two Magdalene in his studio at the time. For clarity, I enclose the full excerpt and footnote which is dated 1820 from Moore’s Memoirs which, in my view, shows that it was a Penitent Magdalene. Canova would have had a cast of the recumbent in his studio but it was not completed because the Duchess of Devonshire in 1819 requested that Canova not do a Recumbent Magdalene for Lord Liverpool. The full excerpt from Moore’s Memoirs, which is one of the articles that I have based my assumptions on, is as follows:

See the diary entry dated April 7, 1820 for Moore’s visit to Sommariva’s collection. “Went to see the Marquis Somariva’s collection; the Magdalene of Canova its chief ornament; an exquisite thing, and excelling in what is generally out of the sphere of sculpture, -expression.” Moore, Memoirs, Journal and Correspondence of Thomas Moore 256. Moore had seen a cast of Magdalene a year earlier in October 1819, in Canova’s studio in Rome. He found her “a most touching thing; beauty emaciated, and an attitude full of humility and sorrow; the best of all the Magdalenes I have seen” Moore, Memoirs, Journal and Correspondence of Thomas Moore 236

Moore repeats his assertion that the Penitent Magdalene, despite its sculptural status, captures expression fully. “The other, [Penitent Magdalene] which seems to prove, in contradiction to very high authority, that expression, of the intensest kind, is fully within the sphere of sculpture, was executed many years ago, and is in the possession of the Count Sommariva, at Paris” Thomas Moore, The Poetical Works of Thomas Moore, Including Melodies, Ballads, Etc. Completed in One Volume (Paris: A. And W. Galignani, 1829) 177, footnote 1.

This in my view makes it clear that it was a Penitent Magdalene.

You corrected my excerpt from the Sacred and Legendary Art 1857; I do not agree that it was the ‘Dying Magdalene’ that is referred to. I read that sentence to mean that the ‘Penitent Magdalene’ is the one that was created for Lord Liverpool in 1822 (especially since the square brackets come directly after the words ‘Penitent Magdalene’ and not after the words ‘Dying Magdalene’).

For me, it is clear that due to the intervention of the Duchess of Devonshire in 1819, the diary entries from Moore in 1820, and especially the letter from Chantrey to G. Bedford in 1822 (The Volume of Walpole Society) that the missing statue that was installed by Chantrey for Lord Liverpool is Canova’s Penitent Magdalene.

I would be glad of further opinions on this subject.