This fascinating book tells the story of a little-known masterpiece by the Italian sculptor Antonio Canova (1757–1822)—the statue of George Washington for the North Carolina State House, delivered in 1821 and destroyed by fire ten years later. It brings together, for the first time, Canova’s full-sized preparatory plaster model, sketches, engravings, drawings, and a selection of letters about the commission, some of them to or from Thomas Jefferson.

This is a major addition to the current body of published knowledge on the work of Antonio Canova, as well as on the classical revivalist sculpture of the early nineteenth century on both sides of the Atlantic.