Among the earliest acquisitions in the gallery's collection are casts of classical Greek and Roman statues by Antonio Canova. These were brought to Cork from the Vatican in 1818. The Royal Cork Institution acquired these works from the Society of Fine Arts in Cork, who had been given the casts by the Prince Regent (later George IV of the United Kingdom). He in turn had received them from Pope Pius VII, who had commissioned Antonio Canova to make a set of plasters from statues in the Vatican.