How the Canova Casts came to Cork from the Vatican

As the Crawford revamps its Sculpture Gallery, Colette Sheridan explores the fascinating story involving Napoleon’s mother, Pope Pius and a Kerry viscount.

To celebrate the bicentenary of the founding of the then Cork School of Art and the gifting of the Canova Casts to Cork, the Crawford Art Gallery has revamped the sculpture galleries in which they are displayed.

Open to the public from tomorrow, the Canova Casts, representing some of the finest masterpieces from the Vatican collection, will be on show in the space which has been painted a striking shade of blue in a project sponsored by Pat McDonnell Paints.

As curator of the exhibition, Dr Michael Waldron says: “We wanted to make a contemporary statement. It took us a while to arrive at the right tone with our colour consultants because we didn’t want it to feel sombre or traditional.

"We didn’t want it to be overwhelming either so we settled on this really beautiful colour. It’s blue but there’s a definite hint of yellow/green and in certain sunlight, it just glows.”

The Canova Casts were made under the supervision of renowned neo-classical Italian sculptor, Antonio Di Canova.

“They depict Napoleon’s mother, Maria Letizia, a noble woman from Corsica. Another depicts the goddess Concordia who was essentially modelled on Napoleon’s second wife. Then there’s the Bathing Venus. These three works are derived from Canova’s own work.

The others (there are 12 pieces in this cast collection) are derived from antiquities. So we have some of the great works in the Vatican collection including the Belvedere Torso and the Apollo Belvedere.

The Canova Casts came to Cork as a result of a simple request. They were commissioned by Pope Pius VII as a gift to the prince regent, later King George IV, in thanks for Britain’s role in deposing Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.

The Pope asked Canova to oversee the creation of over 200 casts of sculptural works. Moulds were taken directly from the marble works which allowed for the creation of reproductions in plaster.

On completion, they were sent from Rome to London where, given their high number, they languished at the Custom House.

They temporarily relocated to a garden pavilion at Carlton House (the prince regent’s London residence). They were offered to the Royal Academy but the gift was declined due to lack of space.

The president of the Cork Society for Promoting the Fine Arts, William Hare, who was Viscount Ennismore and Listowel, heard that the casts “could be had for the asking”.

Hare knew the prince regent, who was more than willing to bestow the works to Cork, then an important maritime city of the British empire. The casts were shipped from Deptford near Greenwich and arrived in Ireland in November 1818.

Some of the Canova Casts, at Crawford Art Gallery, Cork.

They were installed in the former Apollo Society Gallery on Patrick Street under the care of the Cork Society of Arts. After the Royal Cork Institution took over the Cork School of Art, they were moved to the old custom house.

Today, that building comprises most of the Crawford Art Gallery.

The Canova casts were originally made up of 219 whole figures, torsos, busts, reliefs and fragments. But plaster is a fragile material and they dwindled in number in the past 200 years.

This was due to breakages and losses, as well as less than ideal storage conditions. Over time, other casts were added to the collection at the Crawford.

Waldron says that while we would think of the casts as reproductions, “they were made in a time before photography and before people could travel a lot. So they were important tools for the instruction of artists and doctors studying anatomy.”

Waldron hopes that the people of Cork “will use the space as their own civic space, to learn and to wonder, to study and draw, to think about the myths and legends of the figures depicted.”

Since the arrival of the casts in Cork, some of Ireland’s most prominent artists have benefited from drawing them as students. From Daniel MacLise to Seamus Murphy to Dorothy Cross, the casts, which have undergone conservation treatment, have always been a source of awe.