Guided tours of Antonio Canova Museum and Temple

Looking for a Tour Guide of the Canova Museum and Temple?

When I was in front of the marbles of Cupid and Psyche, of a so elegant lightness and of a so impeccable harmony between body and soul, human and divine, in the immensity of the Louvre, I felt a really great emotion. It was illuminating to me, as a tour guide to Canova Museum!

The hand of an artist who was born so close to my house, who grew up working and learning at the Torretti’s workshop in Asolo where I used to spend my summers when I was a child, who died in Venice and who is buried in the Temple in Possagno, after a life surrounded by his beloved classicism in Rome. 

Canova's Plaster Cast Gallery

The works of art of Antonio Canova are not only in Paris but in many other museums, villas, palaces and churches in Europe… so big was his success as a neoclassical sculptor between ‘700 and ‘800. Unmissable is a visit to his biggest collection, the Plaster Cast Gallery in his hometown – Possagno –, that houses plaster casts and scale models of his most famous statues.

Ready to go? An immersion in the white beauty of mythological figures, as Venus and Adonis, the Three Graces, Theseus, Hercules and, of course, Cupid and Psyche. Portraits of important people of the time, all represented as divinities, like Paolina Bonaparte, Napoleon and George Washington. Religious personalities, as the Popes of the Vatican, and monuments and funeral stones to remember the Greats of the Past.

Beauty, elegance, lightness and perfection, a tribute to the classical harmony, with a unique and personal result.

Canova's native home

The Canova Museum includes also the Native Home of the artist. It is here where he painted most of his oil and tempera paintings, which show his precise design, his deep attention to the details, a spontaneous skill in making alive what his mind elaborated.

All this thanks to the inspiring reading of classical writers or looking at the works of the ancients. The little Tower houses his tools, symbol of fatigue, constancy and detail, from the sketch to the little clay model, from the plaster cast to the plaster scale model, until the final marble work.

The most important Italian sculptor of Neoclassicism

Are you curious to know more about Antonio Canova? How much time was needed for the artist to complete a monumental statue? Why Daedalus and Icarus could be considered a metaphor of his relationship with his Grandfather Pasino? How much for a portrait?

Why was Canova so connected to Possagno, his hometown, where now we can admire the Temple he designed for his fellow citizens? His body is buried in here. The heart is instead in the Frari Church: he was in love with Venice, the place where he had his first successes and where he died, at the age of 65, at a friend’s home.

Contact me for a guided tour of Canova Museum and Temple!