Antonio Canova

Antonio Canova was the rockstar of Neoclassical sculpture, a man who could make marble look as soft as flesh. Hailing from Italy, he was the most celebrated artist of his time, with everyone from Napoleon to popes lining up for a piece of his exquisitely carved action. He was a master of the "last touch," personally caressing and finessing the stone to breathe life into it. Rumor has it, though it's likely more modern mischief than historical fact, that a tourist once got a little too close to his genius, snapping a selfie and breaking the toes off a plaster model of Pauline Bonaparte as Venus. A more verifiable, and perhaps funnier, truth is that one of his masterpieces, the *Recumbent Magdalene*, was once so forgotten it was sold at a garden statuary auction for a mere £5,200 before being rediscovered and valued in the millions.