1 – Wrestlers, 1775 (Painted terracotta, 39.5 x 34 x 20cm) This was Canova’s entry in an Accademia competition for a copy from antique statuary.  His model was a cast in the collection of Filippo Farsetti, taken from the Roman copy of a Hellenistic original in the Uffizi. Wrestling subjects were often used as teaching subjects in the 18th and 19th centuries because of the complex poses they presented.Old repairs, chips and dirt were treated.

2 – Apollo, 1775-1776 (Wax and painted terracotta, 60 x 24 x 20cm). Canova gave this model to the Academy in 1776 when he became an Academician.  The sculptor may have used it to present his concept for an Apollo and Daphne group to his patron the Procuratore Ludovico Rezzonico.After modelling, the clay would have been cut and fired in sections with boxwood dowels used to reassemble it.  Conservation treatment included remounting the sections and cleaning away the layers of wax applied over the years.

3 – Model for a Monument to Titian, 1792 (Painted wood and wax, 114 x 86 x 28cm) Canova and assistants. Proposed by one of Canova’s main patrons Gerolamo Zulian for the Basilica of the Frari, the monument was to have been financed by ‘lovers of fine arts’, but costs and the death of Zulian halted the project.  During conservation treatment the original points of contact between the two wax figures, showing the spirit and the lion, were identified, confirming that their positions were exactly the same as the figures on the Monument to Canova now in the Basilica dei Frari.

4 – Pietà, 1817-21 (Terracotta, 22 x 34 x 19cm on a wood and gilt brass base). This is a preparatory model for a large sculpture of the Pietà proposed for the Church of Saint-Sulpice in Paris. Marble and bronze versions of the Pietà were only made after Canova’s death.The pinkish clay is extremely fragile and conservation treatment included remedying inaccurate earlier repairs and cleaning.