Canova's George Washington

This fascinating book tells the story of a little-known masterpiece by the Italian sculptor Antonio Canova (1757-1822)--the statue of George Washington for the North Carolina State House, delivered in 1821 and destroyed by fire ten years later. It brings together, for the first time, Canova's full-sized preparatory plaster model, sketches, engravings, drawings, and a selection of letters about the commission, some of them to or from Thomas Jefferson.

This is a major addition to the current body of published knowledge on the work of Antonio Canova, as well as on the classical revivalist sculpture of the early nineteenth century on both sides of the Atlantic.

Examines a little-known masterpiece by the celebrated Italian sculptor Antonio Canova (1757-1822): the statue of George Washington for the North Carolina State House.
Xavier F. Salomon is Peter Jay Sharp Chief Curator of The Frick Collection. He is a noted scholar of Paolo Veronese and curated the monographic exhibition on the artist at the National Gallery, London (March-June 2014). Previously, he was Curator in the Department of European Paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and, before that, the Arturo and Holly Melosi Chief Curator at Dulwich Picture Gallery, where he curated Van Dyck in Sicily, 1624-25: Painting and the Plague (2012) and collaborated with Nicholas Cullinan on Twombly and Poussin: Arcadian Painters (2011). As an Andrew W. Mellon Curatorial Fellow at The Frick Collection (2004-6), he curated Veronese's Allegories: Virtue, Love, and Exploration in Renaissance Venice (2006). At the Frick, he has recently curated Cagnacci's Repentant Magdalene: An Italian Baroque Masterpiece from the Norton Simon Museum (2016-17). Salomon received his Ph.D. on the patronage of Cardinal Pietro Aldobrandini from the Courtauld Institute of Art. He has published in Apollo, The Burlington Magazine, Master Drawings, The Medal, The Art Newspaper, Journal of the History of Collections, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art Journal. Salomon sits on the Consultative Committee and is a trustee of The Burlington Magazine and is a member of the International Scientific Committee of Storia dell'Arte and Arte Veneta.
Guido Beltramini is the director of the Centro Internazionale di Studi di Architettura Andrea Palladio, Vicenza.
"The complex history of the work is clearly summarized...and placed in aesthetic context in the masterly catalog."--Barrymore Laurence Scherer, The Wall Street Journal
"A two-century-old statue of the nation's father, in the buff, is coming to the United States for the first time. And, no, he didn't pose for it."--James Barron, The New York Times, April 23, 2017
"Italian Art Rarities Will Make American Debut at the Frick"--Joshua Barone, The New York Times, April 7, 2017