January 2009

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Innumerable facets of William Randolph Hearst’s inimitable life have been discussed and debated: newspaper magnate, movie producer and politico.1 Until now, however, Hearst has been largely sidelined within the history of art and collecting, and his collection at San Simeon all too often overlooked. This is certainly the case with
his marble Venus Italica (Fig. 2) by the foremost neoclassical sculptor, Antonio Canova. Even though the sculpture has been displayed prominently in the Assembly Room at Hearst Castle since San Simeon was open to the public in 1957 and is viewed by nearly one million visitors each year, most of the literature on Canova has overlooked the 20th-century history of arguably one of his greatest works.

Although the popular picture painted of Hearst by Orson Welles in his 1941 film Citizen Kane was that of an indiscriminate accumulator, he was in fact a discerning as well as a voracious art collector. Welles’s image has clouded a true assessment of Hearst’s achievements. In her exhibition and catalogue, ‘Hearst the Collector’, which opens this month at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Mary L. Levkoff takes a fresh perspective and argues that Hearst rightfully deserves a place among the most significant art collectors in American history.2 Levkoff does not argue that Hearst was methodical, academic or cerebral, like his Bostonian and main- line peers J. Pierpont Morgan, Isabella Stuart Gardner or Henry Clay Frick. On the contrary, Hearst was instinctive, extravagant and frighteningly clever. The journey of the Venus Italica from the artist’s studio to La Cuesta Encantada – The Enchanted Hill – in San Simeon, California, challenges many misconceptions about the collector.

Canova is considered to be the leading sculptor of neoclassicism, a style he heralded in the 1780s in works that exhibit a rigid idealism and a classicising purity of form. He was a revolutionary artist who changed the reception of sculpture in the early 19th century, inspiring critics to favour his works over ancient prototypes. His sculpture is marked by a beauty of form, which is matched only by his exquisitely modelled and polished surfaces.3 A commission to copy the ancient marble Medici Venus (Fig. 1) inspired his most universally admired work, the Venus Italica. Canova modelled three variants of the sculpture in the first quarter of the 19th century, and Hearst cleverly acquired one.

Matching Canova’s commissions for his Venus Italica with their corresponding marbles has proven to be a confusing task, for the model has enjoyed a celebrity-like status from its creation through to the present day and, as such, it is one of the most copied sculptures of all time. In 1964, Gérard Hubert endeavoured to trace the provenance of the Venus Italica.4 But it was not until 1972 that Hugh Honour brought a series of letters and manuscripts to light that clarified the circumstances surrounding the work.5 His study is by far the most thorough; like Hubert, however, he did not then know that the Venus Italica is at San Simeon.6

There are three versions of the Venus Italica that can be traced back to Canova’s own hand. They vary slightly in pose and position and, as such, Honour explains that each ‘should properly be described not as one original and two copies but as three works carved from the same modello’.7 The three marbles are now in the Palazzo Pitti in Florence, the Residenzmuseum in Munich and Hearst Castle in San Simeon, California. Hearst’s Venus Italica took a more circuitous route to its home on the central coast of California than its two siblings did to theirs in Florence and Munich.

Canova’s original commission was for a copy of the Medici Venus, a fully restored 1st-century bc Hellenistic marble of the nude goddess in the Uffizi, Florence. Following its invasion of Italy in 1802, Napoleon’s army seized the Medici Venus and took it to Paris. With the support of Lodovico i, King of Etruria, the President of the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence, Baron Giovanni degli Alessandri, commissioned Canova to model an exact copy. The agreement was confirmed on 4 February 1803, and when Ludovico died four months later, his wife, the Queen Regent Maria Louisa, honoured the contract.

Although many neoclassical sculptors restored and copied antiquities as part of their practice, Canova did not. It was the extenuating circum-stances of war and the pillaging of one of Italy’s national treasures that led him to agree to the commission, with the stipulation that he would reproduce only the ancient portion of the Medici Venus. He would not copy her arms, which had been restored by the sculptor Ercole Ferrata in 1677 after the sculpture was damaged en route from Rome, where it was first recorded, to Florence.8 Instead, Canova was to replace the later additions as he saw fit. By early October 1803, a flawless block of marble and a gesso cast of the Medici Venus were delivered to his studio in Rome.9

When the young Florentine painter Pietro Benvenuti visited Canova’s studio in April 1804, he wrote that ‘The Venus is beyond the stage of marking points [in the marble] which you work continuously and will be outlined soon.10 Benvenuti was almost certainly referring to a direct copy of the Medici Venus. However, by 1804 Canova’s artistic impulses prevailed and he had begun modelling a Venus of his own inspiration; this was to become the Venus Italica.11 We know this because on 19 February 1805 the French diplomat and historian Alexis-François Artaud de Montor records viewing two unfinished statues of Venus in Canova’s studio in Rome: a true copy of the Medici Venus and a new, inspired standing Venus emerging from the bath.12

Canova had persuaded the Queen Regent Maria Louisa and the Accademia to allow him to model a Venus of his own inspiration for the empty pedestal where the looted antiquity once stood; the agreement for the Venus Italica was confirmed with Canova in November 1805.13 When the Queen abdicated in December 1808, the commission was threatened. Napoleon’s sister Elisa Baciocchi was made Grand Duchess of Tuscany a year later, and she had no intention of spending money on a commission made by her predecessor. Instead, she persuaded Napoleon to pay for the sculpture, which would replace the one he had stolen in 1802.

By 1812 Canova had almost certainly abandoned the direct copy of the Medici Venus as it ceases to be mentioned in his correspondence.14 He completed the Venus Italica on 29 August 1811. It was sent from Rome to Florence on 18 April 1812 and placed in the Medici Venus’s former location to an enthusiastic reception.15 Canova depicts the goddess stepping out of the bath. The sculpture is not only beautiful, but highly emotive. She grasps her drapery protectively to cover her breasts and turns her head tentatively as if caught by surprise. The Venus Italica embodies both the dignity of her Hellenistic predecessor as well as an acute awareness of its fate.

While modelling the Venus Italica for Florence, Canova was making another version for the future Ludwig i of Bavaria. The young Crown Prince had formed a friendship with Canova while staying in Rome in 1805. Although the date of Ludwig’s commission is unknown, on 2 July 1808 he wrote to Canova expressing joy that the Venus was nearly finished.16 Canova delivered the sculpture to his agent in Rome on 18 April 1812 and it arrived in Munich the following March. In 1826, a year after Ludwig assumed the throne of Bavaria, the Venus was included in a sale of his works of art. It is now in the Residenzmuseum in Munich.

Hearst’s Venus Italica was Canova’s third documented commission for the model. In
the summer of 1807, the Italian painter Antonio Vighi commissioned a Venus Italica from Canova on behalf of Count Andrey Kirillovich Razumovsky, the Russian diplomat and patron of Ludwig Beethoven. Yet, in a letter to Napoleon’s brother, Lucien, Prince Canino and Musignano, written in 10 June 1810, the entrepreneurial Canova offers him the Venus sought by Razumovsky and the King of Spain (this is the only recorded reference to a commission from the King of Spain for a Venus Italica).17 Lucien agreed
to purchase the Venus Italica, but his relationship with Napoleon was tenuous, and in 1810 he departed for America in hopes of attaining amnesty. Caught by the British on his journey, he spent the next four years under house arrest in England.

Nonetheless, Canova persevered and by the time Lucien had returned to Italy in 1814, Canova had explained to Razumovsky that he had offered his sculpture to someone else. Razumovsky conceded the statue in favour of a different model.18 By July 1814, Lucien Bonaparte had returned to Italy and was in possession of the third Venus Italica. Two years later he sold it to Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, the 3rd Marquess of Lansdowne.

The marble remained in the Lansdowne collection for over 100 years. It was sold by
the descendants of Lord Lansdowne at Christie’s London on 5 March 1930, where it was bought on behalf of Hearst by a London dealer, William Permain. A copy of the bill of sale identifies the purchaser as George L. Willson – Hearst had made the purchase in the name of his father-in-law.19 Despite Hearst’s reputation for seizing public attention, he clearly wanted to keep his acquisition of Canova’s marble out of the public eye. The marble was shipped directly to San Simeon in September 1930 and placed prominently in the northeast corner of the Assembly Room of La Casa Grande, opposite a Venus by the Danish neo-classical sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen.

Nine years earlier, Hearst had been offered a ‘Canova Venus’ by Mitchell Samuels, the founder and president of the New York-based decorating firm and art dealership French and Company. Hearst questioned the marble’s authenticity, knowing that the model differed from the Venus Italica, prompting Samuels to send a telegram to Hearst at San Simeon on 19 July 1921:
Marble statue is Canova without question. Your notation that it is somewhat like one in Florence is remarkable as it is a fact when Napoleon ordered the Venus dei Medici removed from France Tuscan authorities authorized Canova to execute a copy but he would not do it. He made another of his own creation. This was seen by Thomas Hope who commissioned Canova to execute another with slight varied design. This is the statue in question and has been seen in the Hope’s collection ever since. It is one of
the most beautiful statues possible to find and is in perfect condition. One recently sold that brought seven or eight times as much as we are asking art critic the other day pronounced it the finest Canova in America I am sure you had no opportunity to look it up in books to compare it with the Canova in Florence but your comparison is extraordinary20

However, Hearst’s instincts were sound. The marble offered by Mitchell Samuels is, in fact, a copy by an unidentified sculptor of the Hope Venus, a statue commissioned from Canova by the great neoclassical collector and designer Thomas Hope. Begun in 1817, is a variant of the Venus Italica. The original marble is now in Leeds City Art Gallery and the copy that Samuels was offering Hearst is now in the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, dc (Fig. 3).

Hope’s legacy as a collector was explored earlier this year in an exhibition in London and New York and the catalogue provides a thorough account of Hope’s acquisition of the Venus from Canova.21 Hope visited Canova’s studio in Rome in 1817 and viewed a roughed-out unfinished Venus that had been commissioned by an unidentified ‘Mr Standish’. The contract with Mr Standish did not come to fruition, which gave Hope the opportunity to commission a Venus of his own. Canova decided that instead of following the formula of his Venus Italica he would model a new Venus.22 The Hope Venus is both less hesitant and less delicate than the Venus Italica. Her stride and posture are more confident. The drapery, used in the Venus Italica to conceal her nakedness, falls in front of the Hope Venus naturally. The three Venus Italicas, created in the midst of Napoleon’s invasion and pillage of Italy, demonstrate a self-consciousness that mirrors Italy’s mood. The Hope Venus, modelled after the Napoleonic wars, projects new-found self-assurance.

Hope was immensely pleased to be receiving a statue that was original (unlike Lord Lansdowne’s Venus Italica), as he made clear in more than one letter. It is therefore ironic that he ordered not only a copy for his London residence but also a copy of the Venus Italica from Canova’s workshop assistant Lorenzo Bartolini.23 The copy of the Hope Venus is assumed to be by either an assistant in Canova’s workshop or an unknown English sculptor. This is the work that Mitchell Samuels offered to Hearst.
Canova’s Venus Italica was the most important neoclassical sculpture in Hearst’s collection. His decision not to pursue the copy of the Hope Venus but to acquire the Venus Italica challenges many misconceptions about him as a collector. Hearst primarily collected the three-dimensional arts. He had received an education in the fine and particularly the decorative arts from his mother, Phoebe Apperson Hearst, a great philanthropist and practised art collector.24 He travelled extensively
in Europe throughout his life and believed that while visiting a foreign country it was imperative to understand its history.25 Hearst’s education and his enthusiasm for knowledge enabled him to distinguish the difference between the model that Mitchell Samuels was offering him and the Venus Italica in Florence. He was also aware of the value for a work of art of important provenances. Despite the common assumption that Hearst was undiscerning, his refusal of the copy of the Hope Venus vouched for by Samuels proves otherwise.

With such a noteworthy cast of characters, it is not surprising that the life of Hearst’s Venus Italica was so eventful before she reached the glorious Assembly Room at Hearst Castle in 1930 (Fig. 5). Five years before he purchased the Venus Italica, Hearst had resolved that one day his estate at San Simeon would become a museum. His son, William Randolph Hearst Jr., explained, ‘To him the concept of a museum was an artistic achievement to be shared with others. That is precisely what the great galleries of Europe had taught him.’26 Hearst placed the Venus Italica opposite Bertel Thorvaldsen’s Venus (Fig. 5). Together, the marbles demonstrate a time-honoured comparison between the two artists. Just as Hearst shares a place in the provenance of the Venus Italica with some of the most eminent collectors of all time, he also deserves
a place among them in the history of collecting.

Carolyn Miner is a specialist
in the European Sculpture
and Works of Art Department
at Sotheby’s. ‘Hearst the Collector’ is at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art,
9 November-1 February 2009.
For further information,
telephone +1 323 857 6000 or
visit www.lacma.org

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