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26. Plaster, 1912.
Size 84 x 59 x 32 cm. Inv. no. 152. Donated to the museum by Niels Hansen
Jacobsen.
A competition for a monument to Grundtvig In 1912, 40 years after Grundtvig's death in 1872, a competition was announced for a monument to this great clergyman, psalmist, and proponent of the folk high school. The jury found none of the proposals suitable, however, and instead of declaring a winner, they divided the first prize among four proposals. A second competition was announced in 1913. Niels Hansen Jacobsen entered both rounds.
Niels Hansen Jacobsen's first proposal A relief depicts young Grundtvig in his study. The years of his birth and death are written in a band across the relief. A bell flanked by a corbie gable hangs above it, and at the top is a female angel playing a harp. This proposal did not win a prize.
Niels Hansen Jacobsen's second proposal Grundtvig is shown in the round, seated on a chair at the top of the sculpture. The monument was conceived in granite, except for the figure of Grundtvig and the angels playing harps, which were to be made of bronze. The format was to be monumental, with giants lifting the gateway slightly above a man's height. Niels Hansen Jacobsen intended for the following text to be inscribed on the reverse of the monument: He inherited Saxo's vision and Kingo's spirit; from the ancient north his eye looked towards the east, and he awakened the spirits with his great voice. Niels Hansen Jacobsen explained the quote as follows in an article in the journal Architekten, January 10, 1914, vol. 16, no. 15: I would like these lines by Ingemann to stand on the reverse of the monument. I have envisioned Grundtvig as the far-sighted chieftain who looked into the future and consequently came into conflict with the thinking and leading men of his own time - so emphatically that he was censured and his ministry was made difficult. Niels Hansen Jacobsen envisioned that the monument would be erected across from Frederiksberg Palace on the lawn along Roskilde Landevej. The article in Architekten reproduces his sketch of how the monument was to stand.
First prize Niels Hansen Jacobsen won first prize for this proposal. To his great disappointment, the jury agreed after further consideration that despite the proposal's great conceptual richness, it had such major formal deficiencies that it was unsuitable. Instead, the jury decided to erect P. V. Jensen-Klint's Grundtvig Tower, which was later expanded into present-day Grundtvig Church in Copenhagen's Bispebjerg quarter.
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