Antonio Canova

John Jackson's portrait of Antonio Canova of 1819 documents the most celebrated sculptor of the Neoclassical age, painted toward the end of Canova's life — he died in 1822 — when his fame was at its absolute peak. Canova had created iconic works for Napoleon, Pope Pius VII, and the British aristocracy, and was universally regarded as the greatest living European sculptor. Jackson was a capable British portraitist who had made his name with portraits of literary and artistic figures; capturing Canova gave him the most prestigious subject available. The Yale Center for British Art's portrait provides an important document of the sculptor's appearance and bearing in old age, complementing the better-known painted portraits by Lawrence and others. It is a painting about the interchange between British art culture and the dominant European master of the early nineteenth century.

Jackson paints Canova with the straightforward dignity appropriate to the greatest sculptor of the age, placing him in three-quarter view against a plain background. The face is given careful modeling that preserves the sculptor's specific features in old age. The handling is accomplished and clear, without the grandiloquence that a lesser painter might have applied to such a famous subject.