La Ballarina - Royal Botanical Gardens - Sydney - Australia Photograph by Tony Crehan

La Ballarina - Royal Botanical Gardens - Sydney - Australia

by Tony Crehan

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Title

La Ballarina - Royal Botanical Gardens - Sydney - Australia

Artist

Tony Crehan

Medium

Photograph - Photograph

Description

La Ballarina dates from 1883 when it was part of a group of eight marble statues imported from Italy for the Royal Botanical Gardens in Sydney, Australia.. She is a copy of a famous statue by Antonio Canova, the Venetian sculptor who lived from 1757 to
1822, whose work included The Three Graces now in the Hermitage,
and Theseus and the Minotaur in the Victoria & Albert Museum. The
original of La Ballarina has since disappeared but it is listed in Canova’s
work as La Danzatrice con il dito al mento (the Dancer with the finger
on chin). Finished in 1814 she was sold to a Russian diplomat.

The Royal Botanic Gardens’ copy of La Ballarina was almost certainly
sculpted by an Australian, Charles Summers, who although born in
Melbourne in 1858, had moved to Rome with his parents aged 11.
He ran a successful business reproducing famous sculptures including
those of Canova, was said to be friendly with two popes and made
regular trips to Australia to sell his wares

When damaged, historic artworks in the Gardens were ignominiously removed from their plinths for storage in what became known to Gardens staff as ‘the Graveyard’, located behind the Succulent Garden.
And it was in ‘the Graveyard’ that the team from International
Conservation Services found them in 2006, during their survey of
the statuary and memorials in the Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney.

How La Ballarina came to be headless and footless we do not know, but
she was moved to ‘the Graveyard’ at some stage in the 1960s or 1970s.

Lovingly restored by the carving skills of Polish born master mason Jacek Luszcyk, La Ballarina is back in her rightful place in the Gardens.

(extracts from issue 17 discovering stone www.infotile.com/publications)