Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume III.djvu/731

 CANOVA 721 captured by two British cruisers after a hard fight. He made his escape in a small boat with one companion, and reached the river Pongo. In May, 1828, his factory and goods were de- stroyed by fire. He afterward purchased a vessel at Sierra Leone, in which with a cargo of slaves he sailed to Cuba. Three more expe- ditions soon followed ; in the first he lost 300 slaves by smallpox ; in the last he was taken by the French and condemned to 10 years' confinement in the prison of Brest, but a year after he was pardoned by Louis Philippe. He returned to Africa, and was the pioneer of the slave traffic at New Sestros, from which in 1840 he shipped to Cuba 749 slaves. Obtaining a grant of land at Cape Mount, he established in 1841 a trading and farming settlement under the name of New Florence. He made a trip to New York some time afterward. In March, 1847, New Florence was destroyed by the British, who suspected it to be a slave station, and Canot removed to South America, where he engaged in commerce. He resided for some time in Baltimore, and finally received from Napoleon III. an office in one of the French colonies in Oceania. A narrative of his adven- tures from his own notes, by Brantz Mayer, was published in New York in 1854. CANOVA, Antonio, an Italian sculptor, horn at Possagno, Nov. 1, 1757, died in Venice, Oct. 13, 1822. He sprang from an ancient family, who for generations had followed the trade of stone cutting, and he was put to the same trade. In his ninth year he executed two small shrines of Carrara marble, and the aptitude which he displayed arrested the attention of Giovanni Fallen, a Venetian senator, who placed him in 1771 under the instruction of Torretti, aBas- sano sculptor, who in 1773 removed to Venice. Here Canova in 1774 received from his patron an order for the group of Orpheus and Eu- rydice. This was followed by the group of Daedalus and Icarus, and several other works, which enabled the artist to prosecute his studies in Rome, Falieri having obtained for him a pension from the Venetian government of 300 ducats a year for three years. He vis- ited Naples, Herculaneum, and Pompeii, and, taking every opportunity of improving his knowledge of the works of antiquity, soon pro- duced his great statue in marble of "Apollo crowning himself with Laurel ;" but his repu- tation was not firmly established until the completion of his "Theseus vanquishing the Minotaur." His next undertaking was a mon- ument in honor of Clement XIV. ; he obtained permission from the Venetian senate, which had pensioned him, to settle permanently at Rome, where after four years the monument was opened to public inspection in 1787. By 1792 he had completed another cenotaph to the memory of Clement XIII., and was over- whelmed with commissions. Among the many works which appeared from his chisel, several of them repetitions of former ones, from 1795 to 1797, his groups of Cupid and Psyche stand- ing, and Venus and Adonis, are the most cele- brated. In 1798 he visited Germany, and on his return retired to his native village, where he devoted himself to painting. His picture of the " Descent from the Cross" is especially noteworthy^ On his return to Rome he pro- duced his " Perseus with the Head of Medusa," which by public decree was placed in the Vati- can. In 1802 Napoleon invited him to Paris, where he modelled a colossal statue of the em- peror, which was not completed before 1808, and afterward passed into the possession of the duke of Wellington. In 1805 he executed his " Venus Victrix," and in the same year he completed his monument of Christina, arch- duchess of Austria, erected in the church of the Augustines at Vienna. This is considered the masterwork of his monumental productions. He revisited Paris twice: in 1810, when he modelled the bust of. Maria Louisa, and exe- cuted the statue of Laatitia Bonaparte, for which in 1819 the duke of Devonshire paid 1,300; and in 1815, when he removed to Italy some of the works of art which had been carried to Paris by Napoleon. His reception at Rome was brilliant ; the pope inscribed his name in the golden book of the capital, and conferred upon him the title of marquis of Ischia, and a pension of about $3,000. For his native village he designed a temple after the model of the Parthenon of Athens and the Pantheon of Rome, of which the foundation stone was laid July 11, 1819. He executed the bass reliefs, and a great altarpiece for the in- terior, which he had begun 20 years before. Some of his most popular works were wrought by him shortly before his death, as the group of Mars and Venus, the colossal figure of Pius VI., the Pieta, the St. John, and the recum- bent Magdalen. Among his later works was a Washington, of colossal size, in a sitting atti- tude, which was purchased for the state house at Raleigh, N. C., and was destroyed by fire in 1831. In May, 1822, he paid a visit to Naples, where he had undertaken an equestrian statue for the king. On his return his health became more and more impaired, and he died shortly afterward at Venice. The last work from his hand was a colossal bust of his friend Count Cicognara. His remains were deposited in the church of Possagno. The same monument which he had designed for Titian was dedi- cated to his memory in 1827, in the church de' Frati of Venice, and another monument to his honor was raised by Pope Leo XII. in the library of the capitol. Canova's works, which are very numerous, and were produced with great rapidity, are classed as heroic com- positions, compositions of grace, and sepulchral monuments and rilievi. The large fortune which he acquired was almost wholly distrib- uted in works of charity, and he was especial- ly liberal to artists, for whom ho established prizes, and he endowed all the academies in Rome. He was ennobled and received various orders of knighthood. Since his death his