Theseus and the Minotaur is a 1781-1782 white marble sculpture by Antonio Canova, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, which bought it in 1962. The work was commissioned by Girolamo Zulian, Venetian ambassador to Rome and one of Canova's patrons, who also gave him the marble block for it, one of his earliest works after settling in Rome. Zulian left the choice of subject up to Canova, to whom Canova's friend Gavin Hamilton suggested Theseus just after killing the Minotaur from Ovid's Metamorphoses. The subject is also intended as an Enlightenment allegory of reason triumphing over irrationality.