Histories of sculpture within the Nordic region are under-studied and the region’s influence upon and translation of influences from elsewhere in Europe remain insufficiently traced. This volume brings to light individual histories of sculptural mobility from the early modern period onwards. Examining the movement of sculptures, sculptors, practices, skills, styles and motifs across borders, through studios and public architectures, within popular and print culture and via texts, the essays collected here consider the extent to which the sculptural artwork is changed by its physical movement and its transfigurations in other media. How does the meaning and form of these objects performatively respond to the pressure of their relocations and rematerialisations? Conversely, how do sculptures impact their new contexts of display? The contributing authors engage with a wide variety of objects and media in their essays. Each focuses on the contextualisation of sculpture in an original and timely way, exploring how mobility acts as a filter offering new perspectives on iconography, memorialisation, collecting, iconoclasm and exhibiting. From the stave churches of early Norway to the decoration of International Style monoliths of the twentieth century, from Italian quarries to Baroque palaces, from fountains to figurines, from text to performance, these wide-ranging and fascinating case studies contribute to the rich history of the Nordic region’s sculptural production.
Contents
List of Figures
List of Contributors
Introduction
Sara Ayres and Elettra Carbone
1 Frederik II's Gothic Neptune for Kronborg
Kristoffer J Neville
2 Willem Boy & Willem van den Blocke: The Import of Flemish Sculpture into Sweden’s Courts from 1562 until 1599
Cynthia Osiecki
3 From Mobility to Stability and a New Mobility: The Flow of Sculptors to and from Sweden from the Late Seventeenth to the Early Nineteenth Century
Linda Hinners
4 Denmark and the International Mobility of Italian Sculpture, c. 1709–1725: Frederick IV and Giovanni Baratta
Francesco Freddolini
5 ‘The Box Built in Nordic-Arabian-Egyptian Style’: Geographical Mobility and Cultural Translation in Thorvaldsens Museum
Tabea Schindler
6 Reading Sculpture: The Remediation of Thorvaldsen’s Sculpture in Literature
Elettra Carbone
7 Medieval Scandinavia and Victorian South Kensington
Marjorie Trusted
8 Sculpture Hand in Glove with Architecture: The Sculpture Collection at the Finnish Parliament
Liisa Lindgren
9 Body Culture and Film Culture in Thorvaldsen’s Museum 1932–63
Claire Thomson
10 Raised on Blurred Territories: Mobility and the Monument
Sara Ayres
Index of Concepts
Index of People
Index of Places
Biography
Sara Ayres is Queen Margarethe II Postdoctoral Fellow in Danish-British Portraiture at the National Portrait Gallery, London, UK.
Elettra Carbone is Teaching Fellow in Norwegian, University College London, UK.
