Plaster, 1918. Size 185,5 x 81 x 87 cm. Inv. no. 160. Donated to the museum by Niels Hansen Jacobsen. A bronze version is found at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts.

Exhibitions

The Free Exhibition, 1918. Plaster.
The Free Exhibition, 1919. Bronze. Statuette.
The Free Exhibition, 1936. Bronze.
The catalogue notes that the sculpture was commissioned by the Royal Museum of Fine Arts.

A dryad

A dryad is a figure from Greek mythology, a forest nymph that takes the form of a seductive woman. Here the dryad is shown as a nude woman resting on a tree stump, her hands on her breast and her face lifted towards the sky.

The accompanying text

The literary source of inspiration for the sculpture was a poem by the German writer Georg Bachmann, published in the catalogue for the Free Exhibition in 1918.

Purchased by the Royal Museum of Fine Arts

The Royal Museum of Fine Arts' purchasing committee had visited Niels Hansen Jacobsen' studio in 1935 and was so enchanted by "The Dryad" that it commissioned it in bronze.

Culture versus nature

Industrialization at the turn of the century had led to rapidly growing cities and the depopulation of rural areas. In his sculpture "In the Desert of the City," Niels Hansen Jacobsen criticizes the social problems that the new social order created, while "The Dryad" perhaps represents a longing for nature.