23.5.1843

Sender

Bertel Thorvaldsen

Sender’s Location

København

Recipient

Clara Beaumarié

Recipient’s Location

København

Dating based on

Dateringen fremgår af dokumentet.

Abstract

Thorvaldsen’s greeting in Clara Beaumarié’s album.

Document

Albert Thorvaldsen,

Copenhagen d. 23 Mai 1843^I

General Comment

This greeting is written in Clara Beaumarié’s album under a drawing of a winged youth playing a lyre:

Thorvaldsen seems to have taken an interest in this figure around 1843. It is similar to another Thorvaldsen drawing from the 1840s, C1160, a hovering lyre-playing Cupid, who, however, is not shown as a youth but as a small boy. There is a striking likeness to the relief Cupid’s Swan Song, cf. A456, from the same year as the greeting in the album. However, since the figure in Beaumarié’s album does not have Cupid’s quiver, it may be interpreted more broadly as the genius of Harmony as e.g. in the relief The Genii of Poetry and Harmony, cf. A528, also from 1843.

Document Type

Archival Reference

Thiele

Other references

• Francis Maillard: Deaux Orléanais au XIX^e siècle, Paris 2015.
• Francis Maillard: “Madame C. Beaumarié: das Album, das Reisetagebuch und der Zufall”, Heine-Jahruch 51 (2012), pp. 86-98.

Subjects

• Alba Amicorum, Albums and Friendship Books
• Drawings, Allegories

Works

Poesiens og harmoniens genier, 30. juli 1843, inv.nr. A528

Commentaries

1. In the evening of 23.5.1843, Thorvaldsen was probably in the Royal Theatre. It is not known whether Beaumarié met him there.

Last updated 04.04.2017