Muses - Item #519

 

11 Inches High x 11 Inches Wide x 1 Inch Deep

Fragment from Item #33 Dance of the Muses (Reduction). Depicted in the full relief is the god of music Apollo seated on a rock and playing his lyre, while the Nine Muses dance around the Three Graces. This fragment shows the Muses on the far right of the relief. Thorvaldsen originally created it in 1804 in Montenero at the villa of the Baron von Schubart. The Baron was the Danish ambassador to Naples, and he and his wife were Thorvaldsen's friends and patrons. The sculptor gifted it to the Baroness both for her birthday and in appreciation of the couple's hospitality. Thorvaldsen would continue to work on copies of the piece (as he often did), including in 1816 when he made modifications to some of the heads and added a swan to the foreground (as in this version).

 

Artist: Bertel Thorvaldsen

Museum: Thorvaldsens Museum, Copenhagen

Time Period: Neoclassical, 1816

 

Sources:

"The Dance of the Muses on Helicon A340." Bertel Thorvaldsen's Art and Collections, https://kataloget.thorvaldsensmuseum.dk/en/A340.

"The Dance of the Muses on Helicon A341." Bertel Thorvaldsen's Art and Collections, https://kataloget.thorvaldsensmuseum.dk/en/A341.

"The Dance of the Muses on Helicon A705." Bertel Thorvaldsen's Art and Collections, https://kataloget.thorvaldsensmuseum.dk/en/A705.

Plon, Eugène. Thorvaldsen: His Life and Works. Boston, 1873. Pp. 33-34, 230. Internet Archive, https://archive.org/details/thorvaldsenhisl00thorgoog.