The Museo Canova is a museum established in 1833 at the birthplace of the Italian sculptor

Antonio Canova Antonio Canova (; 1 November 1757 – 13 October 1822) was an Italians, Italian Neoclassical sculpture, Neoclassical sculptor, famous for his marble sculptures. Often regarded as the greatest of the Neoclassical artists,. his sculpture was ins ...

(1757–1822) in

Possagno Possagno is a comune in the Province of Treviso, in the Italy, Italian region Veneto. It is located about northwest of Venice and about northwest of Treviso. As of 31 August 2021, it had a population of 2,215 and an area of .All demographics and ...

in the province of

Treviso Treviso ( ; ; ) is a city and (municipality) in the Veneto region of northern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Treviso and the municipality has 87.322 inhabitants (as of December 2024). Some 3,000 live within the Venetian wall ...

in the

Veneto Veneto, officially the Region of Veneto, is one of the 20 regions of Italy, located in the Northeast Italy, north-east of the country. It is the fourth most populous region in Italy, with a population of 4,851,851 as of 2025. Venice is t ...

, Italy. The museum is dedicated to the life and work of the sculptor and is composed of several parts.

The Gipsoteca

The Gypsotheca (or gipsoteca), a

plaster cast A plaster cast is a copy made in plaster of another 3-dimensional form. The original from which the cast is taken may be a sculpture, building, a face, a pregnant belly, a fossil or other remains such as fresh or fossilised footprints – ...

gallery, is housed in a large,

basilica In Ancient Roman architecture, a basilica (Greek Basiliké) was a large public building with multiple functions that was typically built alongside the town's forum. The basilica was in the Latin West equivalent to a stoa in the Greek Eas ...

-shaped building which displays

gypsum Gypsum is a soft sulfate mineral composed of calcium sulfate Hydrate, dihydrate, with the chemical formula . It is widely mined and is used as a fertilizer and as the main constituent in many forms of plaster, drywall and blackboard or sidewalk ...

models (in fact gipsoteca literally means "collection of chalks"),

terracotta Terracotta, also known as terra cotta or terra-cotta (; ; ), is a clay-based non-vitreous ceramic OED, "Terracotta""Terracotta" MFA Boston, "Cameo" database fired at relatively low temperatures. It is therefore a term used for earthenware obj ...

sketches, and marbles by the artist. In 1957 the modernist Venetian architect

Carlo Scarpa Carlo Scarpa (2 June 1906 – 28 November 1978) was an Italian architect and designer. He was influenced by the materials, landscape, and history of Venetian culture, as well as those of Japan. Scarpa translated his interests in history, regiona ...

extended a wing of this gallery in order to bathe the semblances in light. Among the casts in the gipsoteca is the one for Canova's

Venus Victrix Venus (; ) is a Roman goddess whose functions encompass love, beauty, desire, sex, fertility, prosperity, and victory. In Roman mythology, she was the ancestor of the Roman people through her son, Aeneas, who survived the fall of Troy and fled to ...

, or more specifically

Pauline Bonaparte Paula Maria Bonaparte Leclerc Borghese (, ; 20 October 1780 – 9 June 1825), better known as Pauline Bonaparte, was an imperial French princess, the first sovereign Duchess of Guastalla, and the princess consort of Sulmona and Rossano. She was th ...

(1805-1808); originally used as a model for the marble, During the first

Battle of Monte Grappa The Battles of Monte Grappa were a series of three battles which were fought during World War I between the armies of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Kingdom of Italy for control of the Monte Grappa massif, as it covered the left flank of ...

in 1917, a Christmas-time bombing severed the head of the plaster and damaged parts of the hands, feet, and cloth. A 2004 restoration repaired this damage. In 2020, a tourist broke some of the toes as he sat on the plaster while posing for a

selfie A selfie () is a self-portrait photograph or a short video, typically taken with an electronic camera or smartphone. The camera would be usually held at arm's length or supported by a selfie stick instead of being controlled with a self-timer ...

. The gipsoteca also holds the modello for Canova's lost

George Washington George Washington (, 1799) was a Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father and the first president of the United States, serving from 1789 to 1797. As commander of the Continental Army, Washington led Patriot (American Revoluti ...

(1820); which was installed in the rotunda of the

North Carolina State House The North Carolina State House was built from 1792 to 1796 as the state capitol for North Carolina. It was located at Union Square in the state capital, Raleigh, in Wake County. The building was extensively renovated in the neoclassical style b ...

in 1821 and destroyed by the structure's collapse brought on by fire in 1831. From 23 May until 23 September 2018 the

Frick Collection The Frick Collection (colloquially known as the Frick) is an art museum on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It was established in 1935 to preserve the collection of the industrialist Henry Clay Frick. The collection (museum) ...

in New York City presented an exhibition, ''Canova's George Washington'', which displayed the plaster model, on loan from the gipsoteca The exhibition then traveled to the gipsoteca where it ran from 10 November 2018 until 22 April 2019.

Casa natale di Antonio Canova

The other main building is the artist's birthplace "casa natale di Antonio Canova" (the house where he was born), which today contains an art gallery ( oils on canvas and

tempera Tempera (), also known as egg tempera, is a permanent, fast-drying painting medium consisting of pigments mixed with a water-soluble binder medium, usually glutinous material such as egg yolk. ''Tempera'' also refers to the paintings done in ...

), some drawings, the

engravings Engraving is the practice of incising a design on a hard, usually flat surface by cutting grooves into it with a burin. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or glass are engraved, or may provide an inta ...

s of the works, and numerous memorabilia. In 1799 Canova planted a

stone pine The Italian stone pine, botanical name ''Pinus pinea'', also known as the Mediterranean stone pine is a tree from the pine family (''Pinaceae''). The tree is native to the Mediterranean region, occurring in Southern Europe and the Levant. The ...

tree on the site and it still flourishes there in the gardens the museum maintains today.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Museo Canova Antonio Canova Art museums and galleries in Veneto Biographical museums in Italy Museums devoted to one artist

The Gipsoteca

Casa natale di Antonio Canova

See also

References