Thorvaldsens Museum

A beautiful museum closeby with mostly Roman mythology-​inspired statues, WiFi and Wednesday free. These people realise they will never get rid of me, right?
First, the usual suspects: the museum is easy to navigate, there is a nice cloakroom, there are pamphlets in the nice cloakroom and there is a nice souvenir shop that nonetheless manages to blend in with the museum (didn’t even see it the first time). The museum attendants are very helpful.
Be sure to check the Elmgreen and Dragset photos of clothed Thorvaldsen statues. They’re golden.
Greco-​Roman mythology is my thing and nearly 60% of the museum. While other museums are full with the A-​crowd, Thorvaldsen Museum includes lesser-​known participants, such as Ganymede, Hebe, Psyche, the Muses, Jason and Pan. Fair enough, the last two are hardly obscure, but I hardly ever saw them before. Amor appears very often and Apollo only once or twice. Must be because he seldom comes to Denmark, stand-​offish bugger. The Christian Room is very imposing, with Christ and his disciples. In the lower floor, there are the tools, moulds and materials Throvaldsen and his disciples used, along with explanations and some of his drawings.
Otherwise the museum ceiling is lavishly decorated with stars, zodiac signs, animals, gods, monsters, cherubs and so on. It’s a challenge to decide what to look at first. There is Thorvaldsen’s own collection and some heads of people.
All in all, it was a very pleasant and relaxing outing, a good change of scenery.

Perhaps best known for his «crying lion» statue in Lucerne, Bertel Thorvaldsen is considered one of Denmark’s national treasures (despite the fact that he spent most of his life and drew all of his inspiration from Italy…). This museum memorializes him – his tomb is the middle of the courtyard – and almost all his works.
You can’t miss this building due to its bright stucco exterior, and the inside of the museum is similarly bright and colorful.
The complementary audioguide gave me a quick refresher on Greek mythology and really helped me appreciate Thorvaldsen’s artistic choices, even if the art criticism was a bit overly effusive. However, the numbering system was outdated and unnecessarily confusing. The museum also provides informational cards in Danish and English in each exhibit room, if you’d rather go at your own speed.
Thorvaldsen’s model collection in the basement is also worth a quick perusal: you can see all the superior sculpture he was imitating without an unnecessary trip to Athens or Rome: P (Plus it was fun to see how many people collected locks of his hair.)
Although I enjoyed this museum a lot, it can be a little overwhelming to spend 2 hours with one and only one artist, so I would recommend looking up some of his works and seeing if you’re a fan before you commit to a visit!

One of the most interesting museums in Copenhagen, the works of Bertel Thorvaldsen was Danmark’s contribution to neoclassic art. This is an immense museum for sculpture, the colors of the building outside and inside are noteworthy and cool. In brief, neo-​classicism which Bertel is famous for, is about bigger than life almost hyberbolic (and romantic) representation of a subject. Don’t laugh, that’s the simplest I could describe Thorvaldsen’s sculptures from what I’ve learned at the museum. I always wondered why a Scandinavian would be in Italy learning from the masters because you see his work in Roma. It turns out Bertel was very gifted, he won a ‘scholarship’ of sorts from the monarchy to go to Italy and perfect his art. He came back to Danmark to a heroes welcome after many years of studying in Italy.
He was so revered by the monarchy, his museum sits next to the Christianborg palace… must be nice. I’m not well versed with appreciating sculpture but from a gut level, his works rock and garner many many appreciation points from me.
One less star: The free audio tour was on old pseudo iPod lookin’ mp3 player on Windows OS, yuch, failed miserably and had to swap it twice.
Visits: 2
Tip: If you’re in CPH for a couple days, get a Copenhagen card as this is one of the museum freebies. The basement (coat check and lockers) is haunted. I went upstairs and asked and the front desk had very cool and interesting stories to tell about ‘sightings”. Bertel is buried in the courtyard and you can look out from the first floor.

Not very familiar with the great Danish Neoclassical sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen, I was pleasantly surprised visiting this museum full of marbled splendor. Be prepared to be awestruck by the beauty you will experience here. The museum, a Neoclassical building next to the Christiansborg Palace, opened in 1848 as Denmark’s first public art gallery. If you’ve been to Switzerland, know that Thorvaldsen, who studies the classics in Rome, carved the Lion Monument in Luzern. Check out the Grand Hall with the immensely huge figures. Thorvadsen is buried in the courtyard. The gentleman who worked at the check-​in was polite and respectful, but that was a common theme in wonderful Copenhagen

A museum worth visiting when living in Denmark or if you really really like statues. I like the building and the way the museum leads you through it. On a kulturnat (a once a year event) it’s worth to go as it is free and also they have used some cool lights on the statues making them look very futuristic and special. It was a good experience for me.
It is very centrally located, near gammelstrand and the central stork fountains of Strøget. So if you have an hour to spend you can instead of just walking in the shopping street to take a look in there. You will see lots of Greek god statues and much more. The ticket is 40 dkk or free admission if you are under 18.

We came in here because it was nearby and we had a Copenhagen Card (which granted us free access). While this isn’t a must-​see place, I was glad we saw it. The presentation of statues and sculptures was really creative and entertaining. The curators are clearly making an effort to show that statues/​sculptures can be an immersive experience… more than just staring at some stone and walking away.
For example, in one room there is a Kinect-​type device that displays your moving picture next to the main statue, then gives you two speech bubbles with funny or thoughtful things. In another room there are lenses from different vantage points showing you different perspectives/​views of the statue on display (e.g., peer into a shoe’s heel and see a tiny, upside-​down view of the statue).
So Thorvaldsens is more engaging than an ordinary museum, and certainly more engaging than an ordinary statue/​sculpture museum.
At the end of the day, though, it felt like, «Well, they’re still just sculpture/​statues.» If you’re into this genre of museum/​art, though, you will LOVE it!
We took about 30 minutes in here, but you could easily spend longer.

Thorvaldsens Museum in Copenhagen was a pleasant surprise. I’m amazed that it’s possible to create something that is so full of life from something that is so hard and solid as marble is. It’s well worth a visit no matter if you just spend a little while examining some of the finer statues or go for the whole exhibition including the paintings.