Bertel Thorvaldsen was a Danish and Icelandic sculptor and medalist of international fame, who spent most of his life in Italy.
28 Facts About Bertel Thorvaldsen
2.
Bertel Thorvaldsen was awarded a stipend to travel to Rome and continue his education.
3.
In Rome, Bertel Thorvaldsen made a name for himself as a sculptor.
4.
The Bertel Thorvaldsen Museum was erected to house his works next to Christiansborg Palace.
5.
Bertel Thorvaldsen's father was a wood-carver at a ship yard, where he made decorative carvings for large ships and was the early source of influence on his son Bertel's development as a sculptor and on his choice of career.
6.
Bertel Thorvaldsen's mother was Karen Dagnes, a Jutlandic peasant girl.
7.
Bertel Thorvaldsen had claimed descent from Snorri Thorfinnsson, the first European born in America.
8.
Bertel Thorvaldsen's father had a drinking habit that slowed his career.
9.
Bertel Thorvaldsen never became good at writing, and he never acquired much of the knowledge of fine culture that was expected from an artist.
10.
In 1781, by the help of some friends, eleven-year-old Bertel Thorvaldsen was admitted to Copenhagen's Royal Danish Academy of Art, first as a draftsman, and from 1786 at the modeling school.
11.
Bertel Thorvaldsen was consequently granted a Royal stipend, enabling him to complete his studies in Rome.
12.
Bertel Thorvaldsen was taken under the wing of Georg Zoega a Danish archeologist and numismatist living in Rome.
13.
Zoega took an interest in seeing to it that the young Bertel Thorvaldsen acquired an appreciation of the antique arts.
14.
Bertel Thorvaldsen had worked in Zoega's house as a maid and had married a German archeologist.
15.
Bertel Thorvaldsen became Thorvaldsen's mistress and left her husband in 1803.
16.
Bertel Thorvaldsen studied with another Dane, Asmus Jacob Carstens whose handling of classic themes became a source of inspiration.
17.
From that time Bertel Thorvaldsen's success was assured, and he did not leave Italy for sixteen years.
18.
The marble Jason was not finished until 25 years later, as Bertel Thorvaldsen quickly became a busy man.
19.
Bertel Thorvaldsen proposed to her on 29 March 1819, but the engagement was cancelled after a month.
20.
Bertel Thorvaldsen had fallen in love with another woman: Fanny Caspers.
21.
Bertel Thorvaldsen had bequeathed a great part of his fortune for the building and endowment of a museum in Copenhagen, and left instructions to fill it with all his collection of works of art and the models for all his sculptures, a very large collection, exhibited to the greatest possible advantage.
22.
Bertel Thorvaldsen is buried in the courtyard of this museum, under a bed of roses, by his own wish.
23.
Bertel Thorvaldsen was an outstanding representative of the Neoclassical period in sculpture.
24.
Bertel Thorvaldsen embodied the style of classical Greek art more than the Italian artist, he believed that only through the imitation of classical art pieces could one become a truly great artist.
25.
Bertel Thorvaldsen created portraits of important personalities, as in his statue of Pope Pius VII.
26.
The Thorvaldsen Museum is the museum in Copenhagen, Denmark where Bertel Thorvaldsen's works are displayed.
27.
Bertel Thorvaldsen's Christus was recreated in Lego by parishioners of a Swedish Protestant church in Vasteras and unveiled on Easter Sunday 2009.
28.
Bertel Thorvaldsen's classicism was strict; nevertheless his contemporaries saw his art as the ideal, although afterwards art took new directions.