THORWALDSEN, BERTEL (177o-1844), Danish sculp tor, the son of an Icelander who had settled in Denmark, and there carried on the trade of a wood-carver, was born in Copen hagen on Nov. 19, 1770. He entered the Copenhagen school of art, and in 1792 won the highest prize, the travelling student ship. In 1797 he went to Rome, where Canova was at the height of his popularity. Thorwaldsen's first success was the model for a statue of Jason, highly praised by Canova, which he was commissioned to execute in marble by Thomas Hope, a wealthy English art-patron. From that time Thorwaldsen's suc cess was assured, and he did not leave Italy for twenty-three years. In 1819 he returned to Denmark, where he was commissioned to make the colossal series of statues of Christ and the twelve apostles which are now in the Fruenkirche in Copenhagen. These were executed after his return to Rome, and were not completed till 1838, when Thorwaldsen again returned to Denmark. He died suddenly on March 24, 1844, bequeathing a great part of his fortune for the building and endowment of a museum in Copen hagen. His collection of works of art and the models for all his sculpture went to furnish the museum, in the courtyard of which he is buried under a bed of roses, by his own special wish.
On the whole Thorwaldsen was the most successful of all the imitators of classical sculpture, and many of his statues of pagan deities are modelled with much of the antique feeling for breadth and purity of design. For Christian sculpture he had no real feeling, and the tomb of Pius VII. in St. Peter's and the "Christ and Apostles" at Copenhagen are less successful. Thorwaldsen worked sometimes with feverish eagerness; at other times he was idle for many months together. A great number of his best works exist in private collections in England.
See Eugene Plon, Thorwaldsen, sa vie, etc. (Paris, 188o) ; Andersen, B. Thorwaldsen (Berlin, ; Killerup, Thorwaldsen's Arbeiten, etc. (Copenhagen, 1852) ; Thiele, Thorwaldsen's Leben (Leipzig, 1852— 1856) ; C. A. Rosenberg, Thorwaldsen . . . mit 146 Abbildungen (1896, "Kiinstlermonographien," No. 16) ; S. Trier, Thorvaldsen (1903) ; A. Wilde, Erindringer om Jerichau og Thorvaldsen (1884) ; F. Oppermann, Thorvaldsen, hares Barndom og Ungdom (1924)