Self-Portrait

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TitleSelf-Portrait

Artist Albert Bertel Thorvaldsen (Danish, 1770 - 1844)

Date1839

MediumPlaster

DimensionsOverall: 25 1/2 × 13 3/4 × 8 1/2 in.

Credit LineNational Academy of Design, New York, Gift of the Thorvaldsen Museum, 1947

Object number109-S

Label TextShortly after his return to Denmark from Rome in 1838, while spending a summer at the chateau of the Baron von Stampe at Nys-, close to Pr-sto, Thorwaldsen executed the first version of this portrait at the insistence of the Baronness. The Baronnes supervised the preparation of a special studio in which the sculptor could work, an area conforming to his needs of space and light. Beginning in July 1839, he set about translating the model into the full size work which he completed in sixteen days. The Baronness reported these events to Thorwaldsen's biographer, Eugene Plon, who described the work thusly: "The artist has represented himself in his travelling dress, his arm resting upon his statue of Hope. In choosing this statue, an archaic work, to be placed near his own portrait, Thorvaldsen intended to convey the contrast between the man who must be represented as living, and the marble figure which is cold and motionless."
The sculptor is shown holding a hammer and chisel, leaning on Hope, the original of which was executed in marble in 1818 for the Baroness von Humboldt. It has been stated that Thorwaldsen meant to show himself here as Thor, the god of thunder, an idea which does not seem to be in keeping with his well-known humility.
A small cast of this self-portrait was placed in the sculptor's coffin and buried with him. The Academy's version was cast long after the sculptor's death, probably in the twentieth century, presumably from the original sketch model in the Thorvaldsen Museum which also owns a marble version of it. A life-size bronze cast was erected in Central Park, New York, in 1894.