ATTRIBUTED TO BERTEL THORVALDSEN (19TH CENTURY) Cupid with Lyre Carrara marble, 59cm high Bertel Thorvaldsen was born in Copenhagen in 1770 into a family of modest means. At the tender age of eleven, he was accepted into the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen, where it became quickly apparent that he was student with considerable talent. His journey to Rome, where he would continue to spend the next forty years (1797 1838), was facilitated by a stipend from the Academy. In the collection of the Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, there is a Cupid with Lyre marble by Thorvaldsen (Inventory number ��.����-262). It is one six sculptures by the Danish artist housed in the museum, all of which follow a similar theme of classical figures, Greek God and Goddesses, reveal the lasting influence of the Renaissance artistic tradition had on the Danes creative process. Thorvaldsens statues were in keeping with the fashion of the time, in which artists were working in the neoclassical style, producing art influenced by the mythology of antiquity. Thorvaldsens work is most commonly compared with that of his Italian contemporary Antonio Canova Both sought out the commissions of large-scale sculptural groups, employing an increasingly idealistic form of expression. While Canovas sculptures are known for their lightness and grace, Thorvaldsen produced works with a heavier and more robust quality. As in this present example in which the Cupid figure sits on a solid square base, his body vigorously modelled, his symbolic instrument, the lyre balanced between his legs. On his return to Denmark in 1838, Thorvaldsen was granted freedom of the city of Copenhagen. He died in 1844 aged 73 and following the opening of a museum dedicated to him and his lifes work in Copenhagen in 1848, his body was laid to rest in the burial chamber in the courtyard of the museum. The museum houses many smaller studies by Thorvaldsen and his workshop. These clay and plaster models are the original versions of his later marble sculptures, which were often carved in several copies.
ATTRIBUTED TO BERTEL THORVALDSEN (19TH CENTURY) Cupid with Lyre Carrara marble, 59cm high Bertel Thorvaldsen was born in Copenhagen in 1770 into a family of modest means. At the tender age of eleven, he was accepted into the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen, where it became quickly apparent that he was student with considerable talent. His journey to Rome, where he would continue to spend the next forty years (1797 1838), was facilitated by a stipend from the Academy. In the collection of the Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, there is a Cupid with Lyre marble by Thorvaldsen (Inventory number ��.����-262). It is one six sculptures by the Danish artist housed in the museum, all of which follow a similar theme of classical figures, Greek God and Goddesses, reveal the lasting influence of the Renaissance artistic tradition had on the Danes creative process. Thorvaldsens statues were in keeping with the fashion of the time, in which artists were working in the neoclassical style, producing art influenced by the mythology of antiquity. Thorvaldsens work is most commonly compared with that of his Italian contemporary Antonio Canova Both sought out the commissions of large-scale sculptural groups, employing an increasingly idealistic form of expression. While Canovas sculptures are known for their lightness and grace, Thorvaldsen produced works with a heavier and more robust quality. As in this present example in which the Cupid figure sits on a solid square base, his body vigorously modelled, his symbolic instrument, the lyre balanced between his legs. On his return to Denmark in 1838, Thorvaldsen was granted freedom of the city of Copenhagen. He died in 1844 aged 73 and following the opening of a museum dedicated to him and his lifes work in Copenhagen in 1848, his body was laid to rest in the burial chamber in the courtyard of the museum. The museum houses many smaller studies by Thorvaldsen and his workshop. These clay and plaster models are the original versions of his later marble sculptures, which were often carved in several copies.
/204/Internet%20Image%201.jpg "Source: Dix Noonan Webb")
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.jpg "Source: Christie's")
.jpg "Source: Christie's")
