An exceptional marble sculpture by Antonio Canova at auction
On 20th March 2024, Artcurial’s Old Master & 19th Century Art department will hold its prestige spring sale, featuring an exceptional marble sculpture by Antonio Canova entitled Head of Calliope or Presumed portrait of Marie-Louise of Habsburg, Empress of the French as Calliope.
Head of Calliope or Presumed portrait of Marie-Louise of Habsburg, Empress of the French as Calliope, circa 1812
White marble
Height: 56 cm
Provenance: Collection of Baroness and Baron Gaspard Gourgaud; Then by descent; Anonymous sale; Paris, Four Seasons Hôtel, Tajan, 5 April 2001, no. 77; Private collection, France
Estimate: €3,000,000 – 4,000,000
By celebrating Antiquity and taming the purest white marble to pursue the ideal of Beauty, Antonio Canova revolutionised sculpture in his day. Settling in Rome in 1781, he rapidly received prestigious commissions from foreign courts, and his reputation quickly became international. Around 1812, when Canova sculpted the head of Calliope, the sculptor was at the peak of his brilliant career. Appointed as a member of the Accademia di San Luca in Rome in 1810, he became its director in 1814 and his studio in the Via delle Colonnette became an essential stop for all international collectors and art lovers visiting the Eternal City.
Despite the geopolitical turmoil and his attachment to the Republic of Venice, he made several trips to Paris, where he was “invited” by Napoleon. He then became one of the official sculptors of the emperor and of his entourage, for whom he produced numerous works, including the official portrait of Napoleon and the portrait of his second wife Marie Louise of Austria in 1810, as well as The Three Graces commissioned by Joséphine de Beauharnais in 1813.
In disguise of a mythical identity but based on a real model that the artist idealises, the “Ideal Heads” embody an original synthesis in homage to the timeless Italian genius. For the bust of Calliope, the artist referred specifically to the series of nine ancient Muses preserved in the octagonal room of the Pio Clementino Museum in the Vatican, a museum he contributed to create. He drew inspiration from the Muse of epic poetry, Calliope, to create a form of ideal beauty that he wanted to be harmonious, lyrical, delicate, natural and meditative.
The first version of Calliope was commissioned by the Tuscan poet Giovanni Rosini, the artist’s biographer. The success of this work led to other prestigious commissions, including the copy for the Countess of Albany, now in the Fabre Museum in Montpellier.
Canova’s research into the theme of “Ideal Heads” interacted with his work as a portrait painter and his commissions from the Napoleonides. In this period of intense interaction with Napoleon and his circle, between 1810 and 1814, the official portraits were imbued with this quest for the ideal of Beauty. In 1964, in his book La sculpture dans l'Italie napoléonienne, Gérard Hubert suggested that our sculpture was inspired by the features of Elisa Bonaparte, the emperor’s sister. Professor Mario Guderzo, on the other hand, sees it more as a portrait of Empress Marie-Louise.
This sculpture was part of the collection of the Gourgaud family, the first of whom, General Gourgaud, was one of the Emperor’s most loyal devotees, following him on all his campaigns and even during his exile on the island of St Helena, where he recorded his memoirs. The Gourgaud family collections were dispersed in a sale held in Paris in 2001, which included our sculpture under the title Presumed portrait of Marie-Louise of Habsburg.