Publications about Thorvaldsen

Vor Frue Kirke i København fremstår som et samlet værk tegnet af arkitekten C.F. Hansen og med udsmykning af billedhuggeren Bertel Thorvaldsen. Bygningens stramme, antik-inspirerede former taler samme sprog som de monumentale, hvide marmorstatuer og -relieffer, og Kristus-statuen i apsis over alteret har i snart 200 år har haft hovedrollen – både i kirkerummet og i kirkens liturgi.
I KRISTUS. Thorvaldsens statue i Vor Frue Kirke bliver der sat fokus på begge dimensioner, det æstetiske og det liturgiske. Ud fra en tværfaglig tilgang analyserer og fortolker kunsthistorikeren Margrethe Floryan Kristus-statuen, dens fremtræden og betydning i samspillet med de øvrige knap 30 Thorvaldsen-skulpturer i Vor Frue Kirke og i forhold til kirkerummet som ramme om gudstjenesten.
Bogen handler også om Vor Frue Kirkes tilblivelse, om Thorvaldsens forudsætninger og inspirationskilder og om hans andre kirkeværker. Med afsæt i Grundtvigs teologi og nugældende ritualpraksis argumenterer Margrethe Floryan for en æstetisk-liturgisk nytolkning af Thorvaldsens Kristus-statue.
KRISTUS. Thorvaldsens statue i Vor Frue Kirke er den første større bogudgivelse om Thorvaldsen som kirkekunstner.

By Jan Zahle
English Edition 2020 The Danish neoclassical sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen (1770–1844), who lived most of his life in Rome, was not only one of Europe’s most soughtafter artists; he was also a collector. In addition to his own works and drawings, he built extensive collections of paintings, prints, drawings and books – and of ancient artefacts from Egyptian, Greek and Roman antiquity: coins, lockets, containers, vases, lamps, fragments of sculpture and more. He also acquired a large collection of plaster casts, primarily after ancient sculptures and reliefs, but also of works dating from the Renaissance and up until his own lifetime. Immerse yourself in the story of this amazing three-volume work

By Stefano Grandesso and Laila Skjøthaug 
2015, 303 pp., ill. In recent decades, Danish 
sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen (1770-1844) has
 regained his rightful place in European art 
history as an outstanding representative of 
the Neoclassical period. This hardcover volume 
explores the life and work of the acclaimed 
18th-century master, who is often compared 
to Canova, and includes over 300 images.

By Dyveke Helsted, Eva Henschen and Bjarne Jørnæs 
English Edition 1990, 2nd revised. ed., 115 pp., ill. 
Thorvaldsen’s life and work with a special focus on 
selected works including Jason with the Golden 
Fleece, Venus with the Apple and Cupid and Psyche. 

By Bjarne Jørnæs 
1993, Danish Edition. Bertel Thorvaldsen is 
one of Denmark's few world-famous visual artists. 
From a childhood in conditions of poverty to world 
fame and wealth – tells the fascinating story of 
Thorvaldsen’s life and career in Denmark and Rome. 

By Bjarne Jørnæs Text in Italian. 
Translated by Caterina Testa 1997,
207 pp., ill. From a childhood in 
conditions of poverty to world fame and
wealth – tells the fascinating story of
Thorvaldsen’s life and career in Denmark
and Rome. 

Text in danish. Since 2013, a team of 
art historians has gone through the letter 
archive and they have reached a fifth of 
the letters. There is an image of an unusual 
artist who insisted that all citizens were equal
 - even though he himself became a European 
superstar. Read in the booklet containing the 
latest news from the museum's 4 researcher.

1991, 12 pp., ill.
Important dates in Thorvaldsen’s life – from his early years in the Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen, through his artistic breakthrough in Rome in 1803, his triumphal return to Denmark in 1838 and to the opening of the museum in 1848, four years after Thorvaldsen’s death. This publication is also available in Danish, German, French, Spanish, Swedish, Russian, Polish, Chinese and Japanese.

By Ernst Jonas Bencard
2006/07, 10 pp., ill.
Here, readers can amuse themselves with a selection from the large amount of Bertel Thorvaldsen’s hair that is preserved in Thorvaldsens Museum. A bizarre form of the history of art! A slightly different version of this text can be found in the periodical ARK 73, 2006/2007:4.

By Margrethe Floryan
English Edition
2011, 89 pp., ill.
Introduction to Thorvaldsen and selected works.

Polish text 
By Wanda Jørgensen 
1997, 28 pp., ill. 
On Thorvaldsen and his works in Thorvaldsens Museum.