Smyslnost v mramoru : kopie Canovova sousoší Amor a Psyché pro knížete Metternicha

The subject of this study is a replica of Antonio Canova's sculpture Cupid and Psyché that Prince Klemens Wenzel Lothar Metternich, State Chancellor of the Austrian Empire, commissioned in 1819–1822 for his villa in Vienna (and which is now in Kynžvart Castle). From an analysis of historical sources and preparatory studies (sketches and models) for the sculpture some light is shed on the nature of the creative process and the practical workshop operations of Canova's studio in Rome, which a whole range of sculptural assistants and students worked for. This was the environment from which Adamo Tadolini emerged. A student in and the eventual heir to Canova's workshop, Tadolini was the artist behind several other replicas of Canova's famous sculpture, and his authorship of the sculpture now in Kynžvart Castle is documented by a number of indirect indicators, but above all by the sculptor's autobiographical notes, published in 1900 by his grandson Giulio Tadolini. The second part of the study looks at Prince Metternich's relationship to contemporary sculpture in Rome and his position within the wider international circle of collectors and patrons, and it also examines in greater depth Metternich's own assessment of the work in the context of contemporary views on Canova's sculpture and Tadolini's replicas around the year 1800.