Thorwaldsen, BERTEL, sculptor, was born at sea on the 19th November 1770. His father, an Icelander, was on his way to Copenhagen, where he settled as a carver of figure-heads for ships; and the son was brought up to the same profession. But from his eleventh year the boy attended art classes, and in 1793 he gained the first gold medal for design at the Academy of Copenhagen, and along with it the privilege of three years' residence abroad for the purpose of study. Accordingly, in 1796 he sailed for Rome, whose collections kindled in him the undying ambition to revive the glories of sculpture as practised by the ancient Greeks. From Canova he had early and generous recognition; and shortly, by the model for a 'Jason,' he secured reputation. No purchaser could, however, be found for it till, in 1803, just as in hopeless disgust the artist was about to return to Copenhagen, he received from 'Anastasius' Hope a commission for its production in marble. From this time forward prosperity and fame flowed upon him in full tide. In 1819 he returned to Denmark, where his reception was triumphal. He remained at home but a year, and then returning to Rome continued to prosecute his art assiduously up to 1838, when he again departed, to pass his remaining years in his own land. Its climate, however, proved no longer suitable to him, and the year 1841 found him once more at Rome. In 1844, having revisited Copenhagen to complete some of his works there, he died suddenly in the theatre, of disease of the heart, on the 24th March. All the works remaining in his possession he bequeathed to his country, to be preserved in a museum bearing his name, for the maintenance of which he also left the bulk of his fortune, reserving a sufficient provision for his natural daughter; and this collection is now one of the chief glories of Copenhagen. Thorwaldsen's strength lay in classical and mythological subjects; he imitated with wonderful success the antique conceptions, or even may be fairly said to have reproduced classic art. His efforts in Christian subjects, even the famous 'Christ and the Twelve Apostles' at Copenhagen, are obviously a less spontaneous outcome of his genius. Of his many works those best known by photography and otherwise are the reliefs 'Night' and 'Morning.' Of his many portrait busts or statues those of Byron, now at Cambridge, and Ehlenschläger are perhaps the most notable.
See the Life of Thorwaldsen (whose name is in Danish spelt Thorvaldsen) by Thiele (3 vols. Leip. 1852-56; Eng. abridgment by Barnard, 1865); Hammerich, Thorwaldsen und seine Kunst (Gotha, 1876); Eugène Plon, Thorwaldsen, sa Vie et ses Œuvres (Eng. trans. by Mrs Cashel Hoey, 1874); and Sigurd Müller (Copenhagen, 1890 et seq.).