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Plaster, 1892. Size 152 x 199 x 120 cm. The original plaster model is in the collection of the Royal Museum of Fine Arts, purchased in 1899. A bronze cast was paid for by the Albertina Fonundation in 1902. Located at St. Peter's Church, Copenhagen (previously at the Church of the Holy Spirit). Cast in bronze for Vejen Art Museum, date unknown. Inv. no. 134.
Exhibitions Société Nationale
des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1893. Plaster.
Niels Hansen Jacobsen's accompanying text When the sculpture was presented in Copenhagen, Niels Hansen Jacobsen accompanied it with a slightly reworded version of the last lines from Hans Christian Andersen's The Story of a Mother: She let her head sink down on her bosom, and Death went away with her child into the unknown land.
Hans Christian Andersen's The Story of a Mother The story tells of a mother whose child is ill. When death comes to take the child, she runs after him to wrest it from him. She would give anything to get her child back, but in the end she realizes that God's will is strongest, stronger than her own pain. It is the mother's pain, not the solace of religion, that interested Niels Hansen Jacobsen. He chose to show her defeated on the ground, covering her face with her hands in despair. Death is depicted in his traditional guise as the Grim Reaper. It is thought-provoking how often Niels Hansen Jacobsen used Hans Christian Andersen's stories. Titles like "The Little Mermaid," and "The Sea Witch" are known with certainty to have been taken from the fairy tales, but it is difficult to link other works, such as "The Shadow" and "The Dryad," directly with Hans Christian Andersen's stories of the same names.
The sculpture's reception in Paris The sculpture attracted considerable attention when it was exhibited in Paris. Niels Hansen Jacobsen was accepted as a regular member of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, with the right to exhibit one work each year without it having to be approved by the exhibition committee.
"Death and the Mother" purchased by Carl Jacobsen After his one-man show in 1901, Niels Hansen Jacobsen offered Carl Jacobsen all the sculptures at half price if he promised to have them put on public display. Carl Jacobsen bought only "A Troll Scenting Christian Flesh" and "Death and the Mother." The rest were stored in the vaults under Christiansborg Palace in Copenhagen. "Death and the Mother" was cast in bronze, paid for by the Albertina Foundation, and placed outside the Church of the Holy Spirit. In 1966 the sculpture had to be moved because the parish council considered it "profoundly depressing." It was transferred to the herb garden at St. Peter's Church.
The model for the mother: Gabriele Hansen Jacobsen (1862-1902)
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