Danish Sculptor, Master of Neoclassicism

Via Sistina 48

In this building, at number 48 Via Sistina, one of the greatest sculptors of European Neoclassicism, Bertel Thorvaldsen, had his studio. Born in Copenhagen in 1770, Thorvaldsen arrived in Rome in 1797 thanks to a scholarship from the Royal Danish Academy, and before long, the Eternal City became his second home. Rome, with its extraordinary classical heritage, was for him an inexhaustible source of inspiration.

His studio on Via Sistina was a vibrant center of artistic and intellectual life: the harmony of Greek and Roman forms could be felt in the air, revived in the pure white marbles that Thorvaldsen masterfully sculpted. Many of his most famous works were created here, and today they are housed in major museums across Europe — from the Louvre to the Thorvaldsens Museum in Copenhagen, a museum entirely dedicated to him.

The rooms of his atelier were frequented by aristocrats, patrons, artists, and scholars from all over Europe, drawn by his ability to breathe new life into antiquity with a sober, elegant, and idealized style. Thorvaldsen was also a key figure for the foreign artistic community in Rome, alongside his contemporary Antonio Canova, with whom he shared Neoclassical fame and spirit, while maintaining a more austere and detached sensibility of his own.

After spending over forty years in Italy, Thorvaldsen returned to Denmark in 1838, where he was welcomed as a national hero. He died in 1844, but his bond with Rome remained indelible, as did the mark he left on this building — a crossroads of European art and culture in the heart of the city.