Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
▲▲Thorvaldsen's Museum
—This museum, which has some of the best
swoon-worthy art you'll see anywhere, tells the story and shows the monu-
mental work of the great Danish Neoclassical sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen
(see sidebar). Considered Canova's equal among Neoclassical sculptors,
Thorvaldsen spent 40 years in Rome. He was lured home to Copenhagen
with the promise to showcase his work in a fine museum, which opened in
the revolutionary year of 1848 as Denmark's first public art gallery. Of the
500 or so sculptures Thorvaldsen completed in his life—including 90 major
statues—this museum has most of them, in one form or another (the plaster
modelusedtomaketheoriginal,theoriginalmarble,oracopydoneinmarble
or bronze).
