Some time after this, Thorwaldsen designed a monument to the Duke of
Leuchtenberg, Eugene de Beauharnais, son of the Empress Josephine.
The days went in their fashion, and the Count Niepperg passed away, as even Counts do, for Death recognizes no title; and Maria Louisa was again experiencing the pangs of widowhood. She sent word for Thorwaldsen to come and design the late lamented a proper tomb, something not unlike that which he had done for the son of Josephine—money was no object in the Hapsburg family!
Very few commissions were declined by Thorwaldsen. He was a good businessman and often had a dozen men quietly working out his orders, but he wrote to Maria Louisa begging to be excused—and as a relief to his feelings, straightway modeled another bust of Napoleon. This bust was sold to Alexander Murray, Byron's publisher, and is now to be seen in Edinburgh. Strange, is it not, that the home of "The Scotch Greys," tumbled by Fate and Napoleon into an open grave, should do the Little Man honor! And Thorwaldsen, the man of peace, was bound to the man of war by the silken thread of sentiment.
Thorwaldsen was the true successor of Canova—his career was inaugurated when Canova gave him his blessing. The triumphs of the lover of Pauline Bonaparte were transferred to him. He accepted the situation with all of its precedents.
Thorwaldsen spent forty-two years of his life at Rome, but Denmark never lost her hold upon him during this time. The King showered him with honors and gave him every privilege at his command.
The Danish Ambassador always had special instructions "not to neglect the interests and welfare of our brother, Chevalier Thorwaldsen, Artist and Sculptor to the King."
For years, in the Academy at Copenhagen, rooms were set apart for him, and he was solicited to return and occupy them, and by his gracious presence honor the institution that had sent him forth. Only once, however, did he return, and then his stay was brief. But from time to time he presented specimens of his work to his native city, and various casts and copies of his pieces found their way to the "Thorwaldsen Room" at the Academy; so there gradually grew up there a "Thorwaldsen Museum."
Now the shadows were lengthening toward the east. The Master had turned his seventieth milestone, and he began to look backward to his boyhood's home as a place of rest, as old men do. A Commissioner was sent by the King of Denmark with orders to use his best offices to the end that Thorwaldsen should return; and plans were made to evolve the Thorwaldsen Room into a complete museum.
The result of these negotiations brought about the Thorwaldsen Museum—that plainly simple, but solidly built structure at Copenhagen, erected by the city, from plans made by the Master. Here are shown over two hundred large statues and bas-reliefs, copies and originals of the best things done in that long and busy life.
Thorwaldsen left his medals, decorations, pictures, books and thousands of drawings and sketches to this Museum—the sole property of the municipality. The building is arranged in the form of a square, with a court, and here the dust of the Master rests. No artist has ever had a more fitting tomb, designed by himself, surrounded by the creations of his hand and brain. These chant his elegy and there he sleeps.