The story of a great artist who when a child showed his genius.

Many years ago in Italy there lived a boy whose name was Antonio Canova. His father was dead, and he lived with his poor old grandfather who was a stone-cutter.

Antonio was not very strong, and could not play at the rough games of the other boys, so he liked best to be with his grandfather and play around the stone-yard watching the cutters at work. He was fond of making little statues out of clay, and sometimes with hammer and chisel he would try to make a statue from a piece of stone. One day his grandfather said, “You will be a great sculptor some day, my boy.”

In the same town there lived a rich man who was a count, and who was accustomed to give great feasts to his friends. They often came from far and near to his dinners. The Count left no effort untried to give the most expensive dinners he could, and to please his guests by new decorations for the table and the rooms.

Now it happened that Antonio’s grandfather was a cook as well as stone-cutter. He often went to help in the kitchen to prepare the dishes for the Count’s table, and upon some occasions Antonio went with him to wash the dishes and do errands. In this way he made a little extra money.

One day the Count was giving a great feast, and had planned to place a beautiful marble statue in the center of the table. The servants were busy running about, when suddenly one of them overturned the statue and it fell to the floor and broke into a hundred pieces.

“What shall I do?” cried he. “The table is ruined without the center statue. What will my master say?” And the servant wrung his hands in great dismay.

Antonio listened and decided he would try to help the servant out of his trouble. “May I make a statue for the center? I will make it out of the butter,” said he. They were quite astonished at this request, but all agreed for him to try.

The great tub of butter was brought in, and Antonio began work. In an hour he had made a most wonderful lion, all out of the hard butter. They placed it on the table just as the guests were coming in.

“How beautiful! How beautiful!” they exclaimed. “Who has done this carving? He is a genius. Bring him here and let us see him.”

Little Antonio was brought in and they crowded around him as he told them about his work and himself. “The lad must be taught,” they said. “If he can work so well in butter, what could he do in marble when he is a man?”

And so Antonio went to school, and became one of the great artists of the world. But his first piece of work was the lion made out of a tub of butter.