WORKSHOP OF ANTONIO CANOVA, FIRST QUARTER 19TH CENTURY

After Antonio Canova executed the highly acclaimed, monumental, figure of Paris for Empress Josephine between 1807 and 1812, now in the Hermitage, St Petersburg, he found himself also having to produce a series of busts styled after the original to meet the demand for the subject. Whilst the majority of the busts were produced by Canova's workshop assistants, a small number were also executed by Canova himself, such as a version in the aforementioned museum and another in the Neue Pinakoteke, Munich, (loc. cit.). Judging by the closeness of the present bust to the original composition and the style of its carving, it was almost certainly executed by the workshop sometime in the second decade of the 19th century when demand for the subject was at its peak.