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Lot Essay
This spectacular marble bust depicts Helen of Troy, daughter of the god Zeus and known as the legendary beauty that famously ‘launched a thousand ships’. It was carved by the celebrated sculptor of the Neo-classical age, Antonio Canova (1757-1822), as a gift for Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh (1769-1822, later 2nd Marquess of Londonderry) as thanks for the latter’s role in re-patriating works of art to Italy after the Napoleonic Wars. It has an unbroken provenance and is now being offered for sale for the first time in its history.
Antonio Canova is widely regarded as the most important Neo-classical artist in any discipline. Born into a family of stone-cutters in the Venetian Republic town of Possagno, his grandfather introduced him to the art of sculpture, and by the age of ten he was modelling in clay and carving marble. After early apprenticeships in Venice, he travelled to Rome where he established himself as the pre-eminent sculptor of his generation. His reputation was further enhanced by the publication of engravings of his compositions which were widely disseminated. Courted by royalty, the aristocracy and the papacy, Canova was admired for his artistic abilities, as well as for his diplomatic skills in the tumultuous era of Napoleonic Europe. At the time of his death on 13 October 1822, he was considered a celebrity. Contemporary letters suggest that he was universally mourned.
It was perhaps due to his family background that Canova developed an unrivalled technical virtuosity as a marble carver. Able to suggest clinging fabric, soft skin or precise tendrils of falling hair, he was known for his perfectionism, and is said to have executed the final polishes to a marble by candlelight in order to see the effect of the flickering light across the finished surface. However, it was more his revolutionary approach to a new classical ideal that meant he was celebrated among theorists, collectors and contemporary sculptors. He turned away from the remnants of a late baroque style still evident in Italy in the third quarter of the 18th century, and advocated a restrained yet still lyrical classicism which would change the course of artistic taste.
This restrained classical beauty is nowhere more evident than in the bust of Helen of Troy offered here. It was conceived as part of Canova’s series of ‘ideal heads’, a distinct group within the artist’s oeuvre to which he devoted himself in the latter years of his career. These heads were the subject of an exhibition held at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, in 1997 which included the present marble (Eustace, op. cit., no. 4, pp. 74-75 and 84-85).
The bust is a tour de force, equally compelling from every angle. The intricately carved curls of hair contrast with the smooth passages of skin and the stylised ‘pileus’ – a traditional form of felt cap worn in ancient Greece. The latter has been subtly transformed to resemble an egg, no doubt a reference to the myth surrounding Helen’s birth, which was the result of the seduction of her mother Leda by the god Zeus in the form of a swan. Helen was said to have been born from an egg, along with her siblings Castor and Pollux. Considered to be the most beautiful woman in the world, she was courted by numerous suitors. Her eventual abduction by – or elopement with – the Trojan prince, Paris, was said to be the direct cause of the Trojan War, thus earning her the afore-mentioned epithet ‘the face that launched a thousand ships’.
The conception of the bust of Helen dates from several years prior to the execution of the Castlereagh example, when Canova carved a bust of Helen for Contessa Isabella Teotochi Albrizzi, a Greek-born friend of the artist who married into the Venetian aristocracy and held an influential salon frequented by artists and writers. Signed and dated 1811, the Albrizzi bust (now private collection, Italy, see Pavanello, op. cit., no. 239, when still in the possession of the Albrizzi family) was widely admired. When the poet Byron saw it in 1816 he was moved to write:
In this beloved marble view
Above the thoughts and works of Man
What nature could but would not, do,
And Beauty and Canova can!
Beyond Imagination’s power,
Beyond the Bard’s defeated art,
With Immortality her Dower
Behold the Helen of the heart.
Lord Byron, On the Bust of Helen by Canova
The success of Canova’s Helen meant that he is known to have carved a further three examples: for Count Groslier (1816-17, unlocated, see ibid., no. 284), the present example for Lord Castlereagh, and for Count Pach (1819, thought to be the bust in the Hermitage, see ibid., no. 331). The painter Thomas Lawrence would later write to Canova himself of the Castlereagh bust: ‘You have sent a Helen to Lord Castlereagh that even Lady Castlereagh will not permit His Royal Highness [the Prince Regent, future king George IV] to have, and which I think is your most beautiful head, entirely justifying the old gentlemen of Priam’s court in their indulgent admiration’ (see Williams, loc. cit.).
Of the four known variant examples of the Helen, the present bust is the only example that remains in the possession of the family of the original owner. The reverse is proudly inscribed with a Latin dedication which translates roughly as ‘Antonio Canova made this and presented it as a gift to the most eminent Viscount Castlereagh’.
The ideal bust of Helen of Troy therefore represents a combination of three crucial elements: celebrated author, unbroken provenance and undisputed aesthetic appeal. Carved by Antonio Canova as a personal gift to the statesman Lord Castlereagh, it is an expression of gratitude for the efforts Castlereagh made to return the countless works of art looted by Napoleon from Italy in the early years of the 19th century. It is therefore an important work of art, as well as a historical document of one of the most formulative periods of European history.
Antonio Canova is widely regarded as the most important Neo-classical artist in any discipline. Born into a family of stone-cutters in the Venetian Republic town of Possagno, his grandfather introduced him to the art of sculpture, and by the age of ten he was modelling in clay and carving marble. After early apprenticeships in Venice, he travelled to Rome where he established himself as the pre-eminent sculptor of his generation. His reputation was further enhanced by the publication of engravings of his compositions which were widely disseminated. Courted by royalty, the aristocracy and the papacy, Canova was admired for his artistic abilities, as well as for his diplomatic skills in the tumultuous era of Napoleonic Europe. At the time of his death on 13 October 1822, he was considered a celebrity. Contemporary letters suggest that he was universally mourned.
It was perhaps due to his family background that Canova developed an unrivalled technical virtuosity as a marble carver. Able to suggest clinging fabric, soft skin or precise tendrils of falling hair, he was known for his perfectionism, and is said to have executed the final polishes to a marble by candlelight in order to see the effect of the flickering light across the finished surface. However, it was more his revolutionary approach to a new classical ideal that meant he was celebrated among theorists, collectors and contemporary sculptors. He turned away from the remnants of a late baroque style still evident in Italy in the third quarter of the 18th century, and advocated a restrained yet still lyrical classicism which would change the course of artistic taste.
This restrained classical beauty is nowhere more evident than in the bust of Helen of Troy offered here. It was conceived as part of Canova’s series of ‘ideal heads’, a distinct group within the artist’s oeuvre to which he devoted himself in the latter years of his career. These heads were the subject of an exhibition held at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, in 1997 which included the present marble (Eustace, op. cit., no. 4, pp. 74-75 and 84-85).
The bust is a tour de force, equally compelling from every angle. The intricately carved curls of hair contrast with the smooth passages of skin and the stylised ‘pileus’ – a traditional form of felt cap worn in ancient Greece. The latter has been subtly transformed to resemble an egg, no doubt a reference to the myth surrounding Helen’s birth, which was the result of the seduction of her mother Leda by the god Zeus in the form of a swan. Helen was said to have been born from an egg, along with her siblings Castor and Pollux. Considered to be the most beautiful woman in the world, she was courted by numerous suitors. Her eventual abduction by – or elopement with – the Trojan prince, Paris, was said to be the direct cause of the Trojan War, thus earning her the afore-mentioned epithet ‘the face that launched a thousand ships’.
The conception of the bust of Helen dates from several years prior to the execution of the Castlereagh example, when Canova carved a bust of Helen for Contessa Isabella Teotochi Albrizzi, a Greek-born friend of the artist who married into the Venetian aristocracy and held an influential salon frequented by artists and writers. Signed and dated 1811, the Albrizzi bust (now private collection, Italy, see Pavanello, op. cit., no. 239, when still in the possession of the Albrizzi family) was widely admired. When the poet Byron saw it in 1816 he was moved to write:
In this beloved marble view
Above the thoughts and works of Man
What nature could but would not, do,
And Beauty and Canova can!
Beyond Imagination’s power,
Beyond the Bard’s defeated art,
With Immortality her Dower
Behold the Helen of the heart.
Lord Byron, On the Bust of Helen by Canova
The success of Canova’s Helen meant that he is known to have carved a further three examples: for Count Groslier (1816-17, unlocated, see ibid., no. 284), the present example for Lord Castlereagh, and for Count Pach (1819, thought to be the bust in the Hermitage, see ibid., no. 331). The painter Thomas Lawrence would later write to Canova himself of the Castlereagh bust: ‘You have sent a Helen to Lord Castlereagh that even Lady Castlereagh will not permit His Royal Highness [the Prince Regent, future king George IV] to have, and which I think is your most beautiful head, entirely justifying the old gentlemen of Priam’s court in their indulgent admiration’ (see Williams, loc. cit.).
Of the four known variant examples of the Helen, the present bust is the only example that remains in the possession of the family of the original owner. The reverse is proudly inscribed with a Latin dedication which translates roughly as ‘Antonio Canova made this and presented it as a gift to the most eminent Viscount Castlereagh’.
The ideal bust of Helen of Troy therefore represents a combination of three crucial elements: celebrated author, unbroken provenance and undisputed aesthetic appeal. Carved by Antonio Canova as a personal gift to the statesman Lord Castlereagh, it is an expression of gratitude for the efforts Castlereagh made to return the countless works of art looted by Napoleon from Italy in the early years of the 19th century. It is therefore an important work of art, as well as a historical document of one of the most formulative periods of European history.