Venus and Mars

As we know from the correspondence between Canova and his dear friend Quatremère de Quincy, the author was working on a clay model of Venere e Marte already at the end of October 1816 “grande come il vero o qualche cosa di più” (real size, or a little bigger).
Prince Regent George IV of the United Kingdom commissioned this statue in 1815, even getting to the point of paying it twice what Canova requested at the condition that this would have been the only artwork he’d ever done with this the subject.
Two plaster models were made from the clay one, while the marble, finished in 1822, is now part of the Royal Collection and can be admired in Buckingham Palace, London.
The subject chosen by Canova suits well the purpose of allegorically celebrate the new period of peace that the Congress of Vienna should have brought to Europe.
The goddess Venus, since ancient times associated with good luck, wealth, harmony and peace, is here portrayed as a young, sensuous woman, her flesh is tender, her legs wrapped in a thin cloth.
Mars, god of war, is standing proud, fierce and warlike, his muscles finely chiselled by the sculptor.
His shield and his sword lay at his feet, near a cornucopia filled with the fruit of the earth, symbol of the new age of peace and prosperity brought by the end of the conflict.
The antagonistic forces embodied by the two Olympians here unite in a new equilibrium.
Finally, the composition of this artwork, with the two gods portrayed naked and embracing each other, resemble that of one’s of the earlier works of Canova, Adone e Venere.