Søren Kierkegaard, Bronze memorial statue in Royal Library Garden, Copenhagen, Denmark.
The statue shows the philosopher seated in a chair, pen in hand, surrounded by books scattered at the base, all cast in bronze. The composition conveys a sense of focused creation and captures a moment of his daily work as a writer and thinker.
The original statuette was created between 1878 and 1879 from Louis Hasselriis's design, then enlarged and cast in bronze in the early 1900s by Carl Aarsleff and H.P. Petersen-Dan. This enlargement allowed the work to be installed in its prominent public location, where it has remained ever since.
The statue portrays Kierkegaard as a devoted thinker wholly absorbed in his work, embodying the intellectual spirit that many Danes associate with their literary heritage. This image has made Kierkegaard synonymous with Danish philosophy and continues to shape how his legacy is understood in the city today.
The statue is located in a public garden accessible through main gates during regular opening hours and offers a quiet place to pause while exploring the city. The setting makes it easy to visit as part of a walking tour of Copenhagen.
The artists based the writing pose and its specific details on contemporary accounts of how Kierkegaard actually worked, giving the statue an authentic quality rarely found in memorials. This attention to historical accuracy in the artistic rendering makes the work more than a simple portrait.
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