Thorwaldsen, Albert Bertel

tor'wald-sen, Albert Bertel (1770-1844), a celebrated Danish sculptor. His father was an Icelander who had settled in Copenhagen to carry on the trade of a woodcarver. Young Thorwaldsen learned his father's trade and was placed at an early age in the Copenhagen School of Art. In 1793 he won a gold medal which carried with it a traveling scholarship that paid his expenses abroad for three years. He went to Italy in a Danish man-of-war and studied with Canova, the greatest of modern Italian sculptors. His reputation as a young artist was such that orders soon came to him from all parts of Europe. He remained at Rome twenty-three years. He returned to Denmark in 1819 and again in 1838. He made a fortune by his art, the greater part o which he bequeathed to build and endow a museum in Copenhagen. The models of his various works are nearly all to be found here. The building follows Greek and Etruscan models. It is a low, long, rectangle, of a solemn, impressive style. It contains a series of halls in which there are eighty statues, three long friezes, 220 small reliefs, and 130 busts designed or modeled by the great sculptor. He himself was buried at his own request in a courtyard of the museum under a bed of roses. Thorwaldsen's most widely known work is probably The Lion of Lucerne. Night and Morning are celebrated low reliefs. His greatest work is considered a group of Christ and the Twelve Apostles, executed for a church in Copenhagen. Much of his work is possessed by private owners in England. See Copen-Hagen; Lucerne; Sculpture