Bertel Thorvaldsen
Montenero
Del af vandmærke langs papirets nederste kant: “[...]Y & Pickering 9[...]”
J.L. Lund
Rom
Brevudkastet må være skrevet efter modtagelsen af Lunds brev af 13.7.1804, der omtaler Lunds udlæg for Thorvaldsen, dvs. tidligst 16.7.1804 pga. postgangen fra Montenero til Rom, der tog minimum et par dage, se evt. postekspeditionstider. Thorvaldsen sendte brev til Lund den 6.8.1804, hvorfor udkastet senest skal dateres til denne dato.
Thorvaldsen asks Lund to take care of his studio while he is gone. He thanks him for having assisted him in a financial matter but asks him not to give anyone any more money. Thorvaldsen tells him that he has modelled a bust of Herman Schubart, A718.
[Med sortkridt:]
Vel De være saa god og see lidt efter mit Studio at der ingen Skade skeer
[Med pen:]
Tak skal De have for den udlagte SummeI, og beder Dem ikke at give mere til nogen for det første. vil De være af den Godhed og see lidt imellem efter mit værgsted, at der ikke kommer noget tilskadte[.] Jeg har modellert Hr BaronII
[in black chalk:]
Will you be so kind as to look a little after my studio, so that there will be no harm
[in pen:]
Thank you very much for the laid out sum, I ask you not to give out more to anybody for the time being. Will you be so kind as to look after my workshop sometimes, so that nothing will be harmed. I have modelled Count
[Translated by Karen Husum]
The number of letters clearly shows how many times Thorvaldsen could try to get a letter ready to be sent off before he succeeded. See the related article about Thorvaldsen’s Spoken and Written Language regarding this.
Below the draft there is a sketch of a Bacchus with a thyrsus (sketch of Bacchus, A2); on the left and at an angle of 90o to this, there is a group of one sitting and two standing figures (according to Dyveke Helsted’s catalogue of drawings in Thorvaldsens Museum, this may be a sketch for Priam Pleads with Achilles for Hector’s Body, A492).
On the verso three loose sketches:
• Cupid Offering Bacchus a Sweet Drink (probably a sketch for Cupid and Bacchus, A408, a subject which Thorvaldsen took up again in 1807, when he gave Herman Schubart a drawing of it, C715, cf. Schubart’s letter of 16.1.1807 and Thiele II, p. 73);
• below this, a group of dancing figures and a man playing the lyre (probably a sketch for The Dance of the Muses on Helicon, A705, Thorvaldsen gave Jacqueline Schubart the model of this relief on her birthday 10.9.1804, cf. Thiele I, p. 245-246 and indirectly in a letter of 4.9.1804”:/dokumenter/m30II,nr.4 from Herman Schubart to C.F.F. Stanley);
• besides, one standing and one sitting figure (the sketches together are called Bacchus and other subjects, C50r and C50v).
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Herman Schubart, Tidligst 9. juli 1804 - Senest 6. august 1804, inv.nr. A718 |
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Bacchus. Priamos bønfalder om Hektors lig (?), Ca. 1804, inv.nr. C50r |
Last updated 26.05.2015
See letter from Lund of 13.7.1804, in which Lund writes that, at Thorvaldsen’s request, he has paid Camillo Landini 8 piastres and also, apparently without previous arrangement with Thorvaldsen, given 12 piastres to an unidentified sculptor.
During his stay at Baron Herman Schubart’s country house Montenero in the summer of 1804, Thorvaldsen executed portrait busts of both Herman Schubart, A718 (original plaster), A219 (marble) and his wife, Jacqueline Schubart, A719 (original plaster), A220 (marble).