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Thorswaldsen
by
The man at his work! There is nothing finer. I have seen men homely, uncouth and awkward when “dressed up,” who were superb when at their work. Once I saw Augustus Saint Gaudens in blouse and overalls, well plastered with mud, standing on a ladder hard at it on an equestrian statue, lost to everything but the task in hand–intoxicated with a thought, working like mad to materialize an idea. The sight gave me a thrill!–one of those very few unforgetable thrills that Time fixes ever the more firmly in one’s memory.
To gain admittance to the workroom of Thorwaldsen was a thing to boast of: proud ladies schemed and some sought to bribe the trusty valet; but to these the door was politely barred. Yet the servant, servantlike, was awed by titles and nobility.
“The Duchess of Parma!” whispered the valet one day in agitation– “the Duchess of Parma–she has followed me in and is now standing behind you!”
Thorwaldsen could not just place the lady: he turned, bowed, and gazed upon a stout personage who was slightly overdressed. The lady quite abruptly stated that she had called to make arrangements to have a statue, or a bust at least, made of herself. That Thorwaldsen would be proud to model her features seemed quite fixed in her mind. The artist cast her a swift glance and noted that Nature had put small trace of the classic in the lady’s modeling. He mentally declined the commission, and muttered something about being “so delighted and honored, but unluckily I am so very busy,” etc. “My husband desires it,” continued the lady, “and so does my son, the King of Rome–a title, I hope, that is not strange to you!”
It swept over Thorwaldsen, like a winter’s wave, that this big, brusk, bizarre woman before him was Maria Louisa, the second wife of Napoleon. He knew her history: wedded at nineteen to Napoleon–the mother of L’Aiglon at twenty–married again in unbecoming haste to Count Niepperg Nobody, with whom she had been on very intimate terms, as soon as word arrived of Napoleon’s death at Saint Helena, and now raising a goodly brood of Nobodies! The artist grew faint before this daughter of kings who had made a mesalliance with Genius–he excused himself and left the room.
Thorwaldsen was a hero-worshiper by nature, and Napoleon’s memory loomed large to him on the horizon of the ideal. Needless to say, he never modeled the features of Maria Louisa Hapsburg, but her visit fired him with a desire to make a bust of Napoleon, and the desire materialized is ours in heroic mold.
Some time after this, Thorwaldsen designed a monument to the Duke of Leuchtenberg, Eugene de Beauharnais, son of the Empress Josephine.
The days went in their fashion, and the Count Niepperg passed away, as even Counts do, for Death recognizes no title; and Maria Louisa was again experiencing the pangs of widowhood. She sent word for Thorwaldsen to come and design the late lamented a proper tomb, something not unlike that which he had done for the son of Josephine–money was no object in the Hapsburg family!
Very few commissions were declined by Thorwaldsen. He was a good businessman and often had a dozen men quietly working out his orders, but he wrote to Maria Louisa begging to be excused–and as a relief to his feelings, straightway modeled another bust of Napoleon. This bust was sold to Alexander Murray, Byron’s publisher, and is now to be seen in Edinburgh. Strange, is it not, that the home of “The Scotch Greys,” tumbled by Fate and Napoleon into an open grave, should do the Little Man honor! And Thorwaldsen, the man of peace, was bound to the man of war by the silken thread of sentiment.
Thorwaldsen was the true successor of Canova–his career was inaugurated when Canova gave him his blessing. The triumphs of the lover of Pauline Bonaparte were transferred to him. He accepted the situation with all of its precedents.