Bertel Thorvaldsen

This volume is dedicated to Bertel Thorvaldsen (1770-1844), a Danish sculptor of international fame during the nineteenth century. Born in Copenhagen in 1770, he spent more than forty years in Italy, maintaining a large workshop in Rome. When Bertel Thorvaldsen eventually returned to his native land in 1838 after more than 40 years in Italy, he was more well-known in the rest of Europe than in Denmark. But in the following years it became rather vice versa. Obviously this is connected with the fact that in Copenhagen he could not keep the close contact he had in Rome with the international art community and art market in the cultural capital of Europe. As a matter of fact only within the last 30 years has Thorvaldsen regained his rightful place in the European art historical context and he is considered as an outstanding representative of the Neoclassical period in sculpture. In fact, his work has often been compared to that of Antonio Canova and he became the foremost artist in the field after Canova's death in 1822. The really strong point of this book is that it precisely links together Thorvaldsen's art with a broad international, artistic context and thus contributes to a more faceted understanding of his work.