(Venice 1775-1849) Double page study sheet with scenes from "The Loves of the Gods", after Ovid and Apuleius, black chalk, pen and brown ink, on laid paper, 24,4 x 33,2 cm, mounted, unframed, (Sch)

The scenes on the double page study sheet represent stories by Ovid and Apuleius regarding the Loves of Gods: three versions of Venus and Adonis are represented on the recto; studies for the loves of Cupid and Psyche and Diana and Endymion are drawn on the reverse. The figure type of the drawing recall works by Canova, above all his painting "Venus with mirror" (today in the Gipsoteca, Possagno), which set standards for neo-classicist painting around 1800 and was well received by artists such as Jacopo Guarana, Gian Domenico Tiepolo and Pier Antonio Novelli. Giovanni Carlo Bevilacqua was particularly strongly influenced by Canova. In an autobiographical manuscript which was published by Giuseppe Pavanello he mentions a vast collection of drawings which are kept in the Museum Correr and in the Accademia in Venice today The drawings give evidence of his occupation with works by Tizian und Correggio, whose reception of several motifs was transmitted indirectly through the influence of Canova. The studies on the present drawing show strong resemblances with the fresco „Amor and Psyche“ in one of the rooms of the procuratura in Venice. During the French conquest Bevilacqua and other artists were responsible for the restoration of the building. The similarities of the figures with the ones in the fresco suggest a dating of the drawing around 1809.