Bcrtel Thorwaldsen, a Danish sculptor, born at sea between Iceland and Denmark, Nov. 19, 1770, died in Copenhagen, March 24, 1844. He was the son of an Icelander, who was a wood carver, and was christened Bartholomaeus, but was called by the diminutive Bertel, which the Italians turned into Alberto. At the age of 11 he entered the free school of the academy of arts in Copenhagen. At 17 he gained the silver medal of the academy; at 20 the small gold medal for his "Heliodorus driven from the Temple;" and in 1703 the grand prize, which entitled him to a small stipend for studying abroad. For several years after his arrival in Rome (March 8, 1797), his progress, owing to illness and his own diffidence, received no adequate recognition. He was preparing in 1803 to return to Denmark, when his model of " Jason bearing the Golden Fleece " attracted the notice of Thomas Hope, who offered him a liberal sum for the execution of the statue in marble, which reached England only in 1824. His earliest efforts reflected the idealism of classic art, and his Mars, Mercury, Ganymede, the Graces, Venus, Cupid and Psyche, Hector and Priam, and " Dance of the Muses on Mount Helicon " are among the best modern imitations of the antique.

A more important work was the magnificent bass relief of the " Triumphal Entry of Alexander into Babylon," the plaster cast of which was completed in 1812 by order of Napoleon, for the Quirinal. Two copies in marble are in existence, one of which is in the palace of Christiansborg, Copenhagen. As Thorwaldsen gained in confidence and executive power, he rose above the mere imitation of Greek sculpture, and devoted himself to original works. In 1819 he made a brief visit to Copenhagen. His progress thither through Italy and Germany was one continuous ovation, and on arriving at his native city he was escorted in triumph to apartments prepared for him in the royal palace of Charlot-tenborg. Returning to Rome in 1820, he began the series of religious works which stamp him as one of the regenerators of sculpture. Among these was his colossal group of " Christ and the Twelve Apostles," now in the cathedral church of Copenhagen. In the same church are his statues of the four great'prophets and many fine bass reliefs, and the exterior is adorned by his frieze of " Christ bearing the Cross," and by a group in alto rilievo representing the "Preaching of St. John," which fills the pediment.

He also executed seated statues of Galileo, of Copernicus, in Warsaw, and of Byron, in Trinity college library, Cambridge; a monument to Pius VII.; and a vast number of other works. His largest single work is the colossal lion near Lucerne, Switzerland, commemorating the Swiss guards who fell in defending the Tuileries, Aug. 10, 1792; and among his statues in bronze are those of Schiller at Stuttgart and Gutenberg at Mentz. In 1838 he returned to Copenhagen in a frigate furnished him by the government, and was lodged in the royal palace. He died suddenly of disease of the heart, just after he had taken his seat in the theatre. He was engaged until within a few hours of his death upon a bust of Luther, which was left unfinished. He was a man of much modesty, generosity, and amiability. As a sculptor of bass relief he surpassed any of his contemporaries; and some of his smaller works in this department, as the "Day" and "Night,'1 modelled in 1815 at a single sitting, display a fertile vein of poetic imagination and executive refinement. In other works of the class he neglected the execution for the purpose of attaining vigor and strength.

His entire collection of works of art, and the bulk of his large personal property, were bequeathed to the city of Copenhagen for establishing and supporting the celebrated museum containing his mausoleum and marble or plaster copies of all his works, of which Hoist published 120 lithographs in his Musee Thor-valdsen (Copenhagen, 1851). Eugene Plon established in 1874 a Thorwaldsen museum at the Louvre. - See Thieler's various works on Thorwaldsen, including his life collated from his autobiography (German, Leipsic, 1852-'6; English translation by the Rev. M. R. Barnard, London, 1865), and Eugene Plon's Thorvald-sen, sa vie et son oeuvre (Paris, 1867; English translation by Mrs. Cashel Hoey, London, 1874, and by Miss I. M. Luyster, Boston, 1874).