Past Exhibition
Canova's George Washington
May 23, 2018 to September 23, 2018
Canova’s George Washington examined the history of acclaimed sculptor Antonio Canova's lost masterpiece, a full-length statue of George Washington depicted in ancient Roman garb, drafting his farewell address to the states. The exhibition brings together Canova’s full-sized preparatory plaster model (which had never left Italy), four preparatory sketches for the sculpture, and related engravings and drawings, as well as Thomas Lawrence’s 1816 oil portrait of Canova, which, like the model and several sketches, was on loan from the Gypsotheca e Museo Antonio Canova in Possagno, Italy, the birthplace of the artist.