May Flower Festival in Thorvaldsens Museum

Now it’s come! Spring is here! Nature is waking up. Things are beginning to germinate and grow in the soil beneath our feet and everything is getting going. On four Mondays in May, we in Thorvaldsens Museum will be celebrating spring with a festival of flowers and experiences for all the senses.

Flower ceiling in the corridor at the main floor.

Ceilings full of flowers and plants

If you turn your eyes up to look at the big vaulted ceilings in the museum, you will be met by the sight of a colourful array of flowers and plants. Forget-me-nots, beech branches and lilies alongside cornflowers, poppies, marguerites, convolvuli, dahlias and nasturtiums and a whole Mediterranean flora. Every flower and plant is a small work of art in itself, often created by prominent mid-19th-century artists such as Christen Købke, Carl Løffler and G.C. Hilker. It was thanks to the architect M.G. Bindesbøll that Thorvaldsens Museum, which opened in 1848, was given this fantastic artistic design in which not least the flowers and plants were to be the striking decoration that gave life to it all. Bindesbøll’s intention was to create a luxurious, colourful and delightful setting for Bertel Thorvaldsen’s white marble sculptures. This is why to this very day we can delight in the museum’s abundance of sense impressions from the world of nature.

Moon flowers among marbles and monuments

On Mondays in May, the sculptures will be in the company of live flowers, and if nature is good to us, the special moon flowers will blossom as the day draws to a close so that the old galleries will be filled with new life and a wonderful perfume.

Like an Italian garden

The arrival of spring has persuaded us to open the doors to the museum courtyard, where 19th-century artists have created a small oasis by decorating the walls with plants and flowers from the North and the South. Here, you can relax among painted palms and laurel bushes, far from the pulsating life of the city and enjoy a cup of tea and other titbits from Sing Tea House.

Programme

On Mondays 7, 14, 21 and 28 May from 16.00 to 20.00 we shall be telling about the flowered ceilings. You can take part in flower workshops and exchange your seeds and cuttings and also buy fine spring plants in the flower market to be arranged in collaboration with Haveselskabet.

Workshop on 7 May at 16.00 and 18.00: Longing for Italy – the Orangery. History, Potentials. Joys and Sorrows by landscape architect Jane Schul.

Workshop 14 May at 16.00 and 18.00: Moonflowers – Søren Ryge tells about the unusual creeper belonging to the ipomoea genus and about all kinds of other things from his green world.

Workshop 21 May at 16.00 and 18.00: A time of flowers in the museum courtyard with the flower designer Annette von Einem.

Workshop 28 May at 16.00 and 18.00: The cook and food writer Louisa Lorang loves flowers in both sweet and salt dishes. Come and have a taste.

Ticket Sales

Admission to the flower festival: 75 kroner. Tickets at the museum.
Workshop, including admission to the flower festival: 150 kroner. Tickets from www.billetnet.dk

Flower ceiling in the corridor at the main floor.