Thorwaldsen had more medals, degrees and knighthoods than Sir Walter ever saw, but he would allow no prefix to his name. Denmark, Russia, Germany, Italy, France and the Pope had outdone themselves in doing him honor. All these "trifles" in the way of decorations he kept in a specially prepared case, which was opened occasionally for the benefit of lady visitors. "The girls like such things," said Thorwaldsen, and smiled in apology.
Shelley found his way to Thorwaldsen's studio, and made mention that the Master was a bit of a poseur. Byron came, and as we know, sat for that statue which is now at Cambridge. The artist sought to beguile the melancholy sitter with pleasant conversation, but the author of "Don Juan" would have none of it, and when the work was completed and unveiled before him, he exclaimed in disappointment, "I look far more unhappy than that!"
Thorwaldsen was a musician of no mean quality, and there was always a piano in his studio, to which he often turned for rest. When Felix Mendelssohn was in Rome he made the sculptor's workshop his headquarters, and sometimes the two would play "four hands," or else Thorwaldsen would accompany the "Song Without Words" upon his violin.
Gradually the number of the "elect" seemed to grow. It was regarded as a great sight to see the Master at his work. And by degrees Thorwaldsen reached a point where he could keep right along at his task and receive his friends at the same time.
The man at his work! There is nothing finer. I have seen men homely, uncouth and awkward when "dressed up," who were superb when at their work. Once I saw Augustus Saint Gaudens in blouse and overalls, well plastered with mud, standing on a ladder hard at it on an equestrian statue, lost to everything but the task in hand—intoxicated with a thought, working like mad to materialize an idea. The sight gave me a thrill!—one of those very few unforgetable thrills that Time fixes ever the more firmly in one's memory.
To gain admittance to the workroom of Thorwaldsen was a thing to boast of: proud ladies schemed and some sought to bribe the trusty valet; but to these the door was politely barred. Yet the servant, servantlike, was awed by titles and nobility.
"The Duchess of Parma!" whispered the valet one day in agitation— "the Duchess of Parma—she has followed me in and is now standing behind you!"
Thorwaldsen could not just place the lady: he turned, bowed, and gazed upon a stout personage who was slightly overdressed. The lady quite abruptly stated that she had called to make arrangements to have a statue, or a bust at least, made of herself. That Thorwaldsen would be proud to model her features seemed quite fixed in her mind. The artist cast her a swift glance and noted that Nature had put small trace of the classic in the lady's modeling. He mentally declined the commission, and muttered something about being "so delighted and honored, but unluckily I am so very busy," etc. "My husband desires it," continued the lady, "and so does my son, the King of Rome—a title, I hope, that is not strange to you!"
It swept over Thorwaldsen, like a winter's wave, that this big, brusk, bizarre woman before him was Maria Louisa, the second wife of Napoleon. He knew her history: wedded at nineteen to Napoleon—the mother of L'Aiglon at twenty—married again in unbecoming haste to Count Niepperg Nobody, with whom she had been on very intimate terms, as soon as word arrived of Napoleon's death at Saint Helena, and now raising a goodly brood of Nobodies! The artist grew faint before this daughter of kings who had made a mesalliance with Genius—he excused himself and left the room.
Thorwaldsen was a hero-worshiper by nature, and Napoleon's memory loomed large to him on the horizon of the ideal. Needless to say, he never modeled the features of Maria Louisa Hapsburg, but her visit fired him with a desire to make a bust of Napoleon, and the desire materialized is ours in heroic mold.