Bertel Thorvaldsen (1768-1844) Italian, Rome, circa 1832

Overall the condition of the marble is good with dirt and wear to the surface consistent with age. There are a few small chips including to the edges and corners of the bust's base, and to the hair at the top of the head. There are a few small naturally occurring inclusions, including to the chest and to the proper right eyebrow, and a larger one to the proper left side of the bust. There appear to be a few filled inclusions, including to the chin and neck, and to the proper right side of the mouth. There is veining to the marble consistent with the material. There is a slightly open vein terminating in a chip to the back of the bust at the bottom.There are some dark dirt marks to the edges on the back of the bust.
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This fine marble herm bust by Bertel Thorvaldsen follows the same model as a plaster in the Thorvaldsens Museum, Copenhagen (inv. no. A284). In 1963 Else Kai Sass argued that the subject of the plaster bust could likely be identified as the Irishman John O’Brien on the basis of a letter sent to Thorvaldsen in 1843 by a Mr J. C. Donnellan, an agent writing on behalf of O’Brien’s daughters, Minnie, Biddie, Kate and Maria Christina. The letter states that Thorvaldsen had carved a marble bust of O’Brien after a miniature in 1832, and requests that the sculptor accept a commission to carve a copy. Sass’ identification of the sitter as O’Brien, who lived in Dublin, is lent credence by the fact that the present bust was recently rediscovered in Ireland. Thorvaldsen had, in fact, modelled a bust of another Irishman, also in c. 1832, the journalist Charles James Patrick Mahon, who was married to Maria Christina O’Brien. A plaster version of this bust can also be found in the Thorvaldsens Museum (inv. no. A286).

The present bust is stylistically consistent with a number of other herm busts by Thorvaldsen. Note, in particular, the bust of Christian Albrecht Jenson, carved in 1839, and housed in the Thorvaldsens Museum (inv. no. B 443). The hair, fashionably swept forward towards the front of the head, is closely comparable with the superb rendering of the hair in the present bust, in which the individual locks of hair have been layered in a similarly virtuoso manner. This careful attention to his sitters’ hair is typical of Thorvaldsen, and is one of the factors that distinguishes him as a master portraitist. The same herm truncation can be seen in a number of earlier busts, including Thorvaldsen’s self portrait of 1810 (plaster, Thorvaldsens Museum, inv. no. A 223). The monogram AT is also found on a number of Thorvaldsen’s other works, including to the back of his marble bust of Jane Crauford of 1818 (Thorvaldsens Museum, inv. no. A 898).

RELATED LITERATURE
E. K. Sass, Thorvaldsens Portrætbuster, Copenhagen, 1963-65, vol. II, p. 292-296, vol. III, p. 100-108, no. 162; E. di Majo, B. Jornaes and S. Susinno (eds.), Bertel Thorvaldsen 1770-1844. Scultore danese a Roma, exhib. cat. Galleria Nazionale d’Arte, Rome, 1988, pp. 39, 268; G. Bott and H. Spielmann (eds.), Künstlerleben in Rom: Bertel Thorvaldsen, der dänische Bildhauer und seine Deutschen Freunde, exhib. cat. Germanisches Nationalmuseum and Schleswig-Holsteinisches Landesmuseum, Nuremburg, 1991, pp. 510-12, 516-18, 524-6, 681-2, nos. 4.5, 4.12, 4.20, 8.29