SOMETHING TO INTEREST YOU.

Waikato Times, Volume 118, Issue 19663, 24 August 1935, Page 16 (Supplement)

SOMETHING TO INTEREST YOU.

A long time ago a little boy called Antonio Canova lived In Italy. He was only three years old when he went to stay with his kind grandmother and grandfather. His grandfather used to be busy all day long carving stone figures. Little Antonio played In his work shop, he liked the pretty Agures his grandfather made. Now, to carve a Agure, the Arst thing is to make a drawing of it. Antonio’s grandfather ■began to teach him to draw. He put a pencil in the chubby little hand, and he found that Baby Antonio soon made very good drawings. Before long, Antonio was learning to make shapes of birds, animals and Cowers in clay. He was very clever at this and made lovely little models. By the time he was nine, he was able to cut figures in stone, just as Ills grandfather did. He now helped his grandfather every day to make carvings for sale. One day a rich man living near was in trouble. He was having a grand dinner party In the evening, and the ornament for the middle of the table had been broken. He asked the old stone-cutter if he could help him. There was nothing, however, In the workshop that would do; and there was not time to make a new Agure. Antonio was standing by. “If I could have a lump of butter,” he said, “I

THE BUTTER LION.

think I could make something.” A lump of butter! That was a strange idea. Antonio was given a large block of butter, and Ills clever hands were soon busy. He worked away little by little, until at last he had worked a beautiful Agure of a lion. That night the butter lion stood in the middle of the dinner table. When the guests •sat round the table all eyes were turned on the noble lion. “What a Ano piece of work," everyone said. “Who did it?” And how surprised they all were, when they found the beautiful model was made by a boy! The rich man was so pleased with Antonio that he paid for him to have lessons in carving. Antonio worked very, very hard and when he was fifteen, he had a little workshop of his own. There he made and sold statues. He never went to bed at night until he had made a new Agure to carve. All the lime he was getting better and better at his work, and, in the end Antonio Canova became one of the world’s greatest carvers. It is more than a hundred years since he died, yet people still go from all parts of the world to see and admire the lovely statues he made. It is a good tiling they are made of stone, and not of butter to last for only a night. —Sent by 'Connie Ritchie.