Towards 1900, Danish sculptors were working in the shadow of Thorvaldsen, but without conviction. Carl Jacobsen saw sculpture as the bearer of an educative ideal, and by his support for contemporary sculpture he wished to make his contribution to the creation of a great Danish sculptural art - founded on such diverse ideals as the classicism of Thorvaldsen and on French salon sculpture.

History was to prove otherwise. This collection of Danish sculptures after 1860 has suffered almost total neglect. Modernism has irrevocably changed the way we experience art, and it has become difficult to take the work of this forgotten generation of artists at face value. This volume comprises 135 works of Danish sculpture from around 1860 to 1920, most of them personally acquired by Carl Jacobsen.