Back to 1791

1791 - 29.8.1796

Residence and workroom at 13, Åbenrå, the entire first floor, Copenhagen.

Primary sources

  • KV-1795, KV-1796, Copenhagen Directory (“Thorwaldsen, Sculptor”. NB. not mentioned in KV-1790, KV-1791, KV-1792, KV-1794).
    • Hans Hansen’s diary 23.2.1795 (“His place looks very much like that of a genius, for tobacco, paints, paper, teacups, books, modeling tools, powder and tallow, miniature portraits and hundreds of other things together with a good deal of pure dirt live happily together on a small table and are so well mixed that the best of chemists would find it difficult to separate them from each other.”)
  • Thiele I, p. 26, 32, 43 (“In the last year referred to [1791], the family had lived somewhere in Vognmagergade, but as circumstances had now improved somewhat, they moved back to the same house in Aabenraa, where they had lived before, and did not content themselves with one half of the first floor, as before, but rented the entire floor. The young artist now had his own workroom just above the front door.”)
  • Carl Frederik Wilckens: Træk af Thorvaldsens Konstner- og Omgangsliv, Copenhagen 1874, p. 52 (“My parents have also lived here, but this was a better place [than the one in Grønnegade 7]. See that window on the first floor above the front door, that was my workroom, and my parents had the room next to it.”)

Other references

  • The street was then called “Aabenraae”.
  • Louis Bobé: ‘Bertel Thorvaldsen’, in: Berlingske Tidende, Aften, April 26, 1932, p. 7-8.
  • Julius Clausen and P. Fr. Rist (eds.): Hans Hansen, The Portrait Painter’s Diary, 1793-1797, Copenhagen 1907, p. 121-122, cf. 23.2.1795”:/dokumenter/ea8414.
  • On the façade there was a memorial tablet to Thorvaldsen saying: “Thorvaldsen lived here 1791-96”, the Museum of Copenhagen, inv.no 1934:59×0001.. It is not known when the memorial tablet was put up.

Last updated 16.03.2016