Ludvig Brandstrup

Ludvig Brandstrup (16 August 1861 – 13 May 1935) was a Danish sculptor. He is remembered above all for his equestrian statue of Christian IX in Esbjerg but was also one of the most competent portraitists of his day.

Born in Tranekær on the Danish island of Langeland, Brandstrup attended Sorø Academy before training for five years as a carpenter with Severin and Andreas Jensen in Copenhagen, after which he spent a year studying in the sculptor Vilhelm Bissen's studio in 1884 where he learnt the art of sculpting marble in the Thorvaldsen style. He then spent a short period at Copenhagen's Technical School from where he entered the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in 1885, graduating in 1888.

He first exhibited at the Charlottenborg Spring Exhibition in 1886 before winning the Neuhausen Medal in 1889 for a portrait of Frederik Ludvig Liebenberg. In 1899, he was awarded the Thorvaldsen Medal for the equestrian statue of Christian IX which stands on the central square in Esbjerg. During his journeys to Italy in the early 1990s, he was inspired by the Florentine Renaissance style, especially Donatello's work. The influence of the Classical style can be seen in his Atlante (1903) and Psyke (1921). Brandstrup became one of his generation's best portraitists, often receiving orders from the brewer Carl Jacobsen. His sensitive work includes busts of the artist Vilhelm Kyhn (c. 1889), the art historian Julius Lange (1896), the philosopher Harald Høffding (1900) and a double bust of Carl Jacobsen and his wife Ottilia (1904).

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