Thorwaldsen
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
ALBERT BAR- THOLOMEW (BERTEL) (tor'valdsen), a Danish sculptor; born in Copenhagen, Denmark, Nov. 19, 1770. At first he helped his father to cut figure heads in the royal dockyard, then, after some years' study at the Academy of Arts, THORWALDSEN he won the privilege of studying three years abroad. Going to Rome (1797) he studied the works of Canova the sculptor, and Carstens the painter. In 1803, he received a commission from Sir Thomas Hope to execute in marble a statue of Jason. Commissions flowed in and his unsurpassed abilities as a sculptor became everywhere recognized. In 1819 he returned to Denmark, and his journey through Germany and his reception at Copenhagen resembled a triumph. After a year in Copenhagen he returned to Rome, visiting on his way Berlin, Dresat Rome till 1838, when he undertook another journey to Copenhagen, purposing to establish there a museum of his works and art treasures. His return was a sort of national festival. The remainder of his life was spent chiefly in the Danish capital. Thorwaldsen was eminently successful in his subjects chosen from Greek mythology, such as his Mars, Mercury, Venus, etc. His religious works, among which are a colossal group of Christ and the Twelve Apostles, St. John Preaching in the Wilderness, and statues of the four great prophets, display grandeur of conception. Chief among his other works are his statues of Galileo and Copernicus, and the colossal lion near Lucerne, in memory of the Swiss guards who fell in defense of the Tuileries. He died in Copenhagen, March 24, 1844. The Thorwaldsen Museum, opened in 1846, contains about 300 of the works of the sculptor.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Collier's account of 1921 still stands in its essentials, and the Thorvaldsens Museum it mentions remains open on Slotsholmen in Copenhagen, built around the sculptor's own collection and his tomb in the courtyard. Two small corrections have crept in: the name is now normally spelled Thorvaldsen in English, and his patron for the Jason was the collector Thomas Hope, not "Sir Thomas"; the museum itself now treats his birth date, given here as 19 November 1770, as uncertain, since no reliable record survives and the sculptor seems to have chosen the day himself. What has moved most is fashion. The neoclassical manner that made him, in Collier's words, of "unsurpassed abilities", fell out of critical favour for much of the twentieth century, though his Christ from the Church of Our Lady has become one of the most reproduced religious sculptures in the world, copied at Latter-day Saint visitors' centres and in churches across America.
Written for this edition, 2026.