Currently not on view
The Tomb of Maria Christina of Austria, by Antonio Canova,
1820s
Depicted here is the tomb that Albert of Saxe-Teschen commissioned from Canova for his wife, Maria Christina of Austria. The monument, in St. Augustine’s Church in Vienna, was completed in 1805. The painting differs from the tomb in its inscription, which reads "MARIAE CHRISTINAE AVSTRIACAE/ ALBERTI SAXONIAE PRINCIPIS CONIVCI" (To Maria Christina of Austria/ Wife of Albert, Prince of Saxony) instead of the original "VXORI OPTIMAE /ALBERTVS" (To the Best Wife/Albert). This change reflects the different intentions of the sculptor and the patron. Albert had envisioned the tomb as a traditional homage to the deceased, but Canova created a new kind of monument, in which the theme of death itself was emphasized: a cortege of people of different ages and genders enters the doorway of the royal tomb, which becomes a gateway for all of humanity to the world beyond.
More Context
Handbook Entry
This painting was submitted to the Paris Salon of 1833 by the little-known painter Charles Swagers. The cenotaph depicted here stands in the Augustinian Church in Vienna; commissioned by Duke Albert of Sachsen-Teschen to commemorate his wife, who died in 1798, it was created by Antonio Canova (1757–1822), the foremost Neoclassical sculptor of the age. Like the monument Canova had designed earlier to honor Titian, in Venice, it was unprecedented for its synthesis of an ancient structure — based on the Pyramid of Cestius in Rome — and a modern interpretation of a figural tomb. The deceased appears only in a portrait medallion, and Christian imagery has been eliminated. The genius of death, the mourning lion, the figures representing the different ages of humankind: all suggest an eternity and a visual language that would have been as comprehensible to the ancients as they are to us.
Information
1820s
- Explication des ouvrages de peinture, sculpture, architecture, gravure, et lithographie des artistes vivans: exposés au Musée royal le 1er mars 1833, (Paris: Musee Royal du Luxembourg, 1833), p. 163
- Dictionnaire générale des artistes de l'école française, depuis l'origine des arts du dessin jusqu'à nos jours, (Paris: Librairie Renouard, 1882)., Vol. 2: p. 536
- Carlo Alberto Petrucci, Catalogo generale delle stampe tratte dai rami incisi posseduti dalla Calcografia nazionale, (Roma: La Libreria dello Stato, 1953)., no. 1299
- "Acquisitions 1970", Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University 30, no. 1 (1971): p. 22-30., p. 28
- The age of neo-classicism: [catalogue of] the fourteenth exhibition of the Council of Europe [held at] the Royal Academy and the Victoria & Albert Museum, (London: Arts Council of Great Britain, 1972)., no. 245
- Mark Girouard, "Neo-Classicism: from the revolutionary to the fancy dress", Architectural review 152, no. 907 (Sept. 1, 1972): p. 169-172., p. 174, fig. 11
- Lorenz Eitner, ""The age of neo-classicism": I. paintings and sculpture at the Royal Academy", Burlington magazine 114, no. 836 (Nov. 1972): p. 743-749., fig. 8
- Horst Woldemar Janson, History of art: a survey of the major visual arts from the dawn of history to the present day, (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1977)., p. 592, fig. 758
- Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collections (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Art Museum, 2013), p. 46
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