Botanical Gardens. Adelaide S.A.

Superb large lithograph of the two marble statues on the path to the glass house, the path on the right is to the Owen Fountain, Adelaide Botanic Gardens.

Venere di Canova (Canova’s Venus) was the first public street statue in Adelaide, and is actually a copy of a the Italian Venus by Florentine sculptor Antonia Canova. The life-sized Venere di Canova is made completely of white Carrara marble, standing on a base of Sicilian marble and elevated on a pedestal of Kapunda stone and was carved by the Pugi brothers, copyists of Florence for William Horn. It was donated to the city by wealthy pastoralist, mining magnate and parliamentarian William Austin Horn and was unveilied on 3 September 1892 by Mayor FW Bullock, who at the time called ‘upon every citizen to regard himself as a special constable, bound in honour and duty to protect this chaste and graceful piece of statuary from the dangers of larrikinism and vandalism’.

This series of views were the first examples of the new printing technique of photo lithography. In this method the plate was photo sensitised and the image was then transferred by photography. The plate then was inked and printed in the traditional way. Rare.
From Picturesque Views of Australia.