Famous, original statues and their copies
Some museums in Copenhagen offer free admission on Wednesday. The New (NY) Carlsberg Glyptotek Museum offers free admission on Sunday. With the weak U.S. dollar, admission can be up to US$20 each at some of these places so we try to take advantage of the free days. We headed over to the Glyptotek this past Sunday. It is located right across the street from Tivoli. Needless to say, the kids would have much rather been involved in the screaming we could hear coming from riders across the street.
(Sorry for more pictures of Copenhagen clouds, but they can hardly be missed. Notice the reflections of clouds in the front door pane as well.)
We made no preparations in terms of research as to what one can see at the Glyptotek beforehand. They have a large selection of ancient works and pieces you normally don’t see in quantity outside of Italy. It reminded me of Italian museums I visited three years ago.
Just as we were about to leave (as the kids were really tired of the place) I noticed a room off to the left that we hadn’t gone into. I took a quick peak in to find a large collection of Auguste Rodin’s pieces including The Thinker and The Kiss. I thought we’d see both in Paris next month, not Copenhagen now, so this was a surprise that seemed somehow wrong. It turns out that there are over 20 casts or copies of The Thinker that Rodin made and Copenhagen has one of them.
The Kiss is a bit more rare as there are only three, large marble versions that Rodin made. The Glyptotek has one of the three. There are many bronze casts of The Kiss.
Later in the day, we were sitting on a bench eating ice cream near a large church. We decided to look inside. After entering the church (Church of Our Lady or Vor Frue Kirke) we found statues of the apostles and a statue of the “Mormon Jesus.”
After returning “home” to our apartment in Frederiksberg and doing a bit of research online I found that the statue I had just photographed is the original Christus carved in 1821 by the famous Danish sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen (whose work we have seen many times in Copenhagen now). The version in the Salt Lake City Visitors Center on Temple Square is a copy made more than a hundred years later. Now there are countless copies in Mormon churches and homes (much smaller versions of course) around the world.