Rome in the Footsteps of an XVIIIth Century Traveller

The Three Andersen Boys at Newport in ca. 1895

Hendrik Christian Andersen (who was not related to the Danish writer) was born in 1873, the son of a poor Norwegian couple who the following year emigrated to Newport, Rhode Island. He and his two brothers all showed precocious artistic ability, and were taken up and educated at the expense of wealthy local philanthropists. Hendrik's older brother Andreas became a painter, Hendrik a sculptor and the youngest, Arthur, a musician. Following in Andreas's footsteps, Hendrik spent time studying in France and Italy, settling in Rome toward the end of the 1890s.

Portrait of Ethel Cochrane by Andreas Andersen (1900)

Andreas married Olivia Cushing, a Newport heiress with literary pretensions. She was the granddaughter of John Perkins Cushing (1787-1862), a wealthy sea merchant, opium smuggler, and philanthropist. Cushing run a company in Canton in 1806-1830. They imported and traded rice during a famine in China and during the War of 1812, the family loaned their money out, at an interest rate of 18 percent, to other merchants in Canton. When the fur trade diminished they began searching for a substitute for what had once been the foundation of Boston's China trade. The firm focused on opium and, by the 1820s, Cushing was known as the most influential of all the foreigners in Canton. In 1830 he sold his China business and retired to Boston where he married.
Olivia had a brother, Howard, who became a painter and befriended with Andreas. Howard married Ethel Cochrane, daughter of a Boston manufacturer and capitalist. Olivia and Howard were to have more impact on Hendrik's career than on Andreas'.

Busts of Beatrice (the young woman who acts as Dante's guide in the last book of the Divine Comedy - 1899) and of Helene Monsen (1910), Hendrik's mother, by H. C. Andersen

We kept on and on into the great dim rather sordidly papal streets that approach the quarter of St. Peter's; to the accompaniment, finally, of that markedly felt provocation of fond wonder which had never failed to lie in wait for me under any question of a renewed glimpse of the huge unvisited rear of the basilica. There was no renewed glimpse just then, in the gloaming; but the region I speak of had been for me, in fact, during the previous weeks, less unvisited than ever before, so that I had come to count an occasional walk round and about it as quite of the essence of the convenient small change with which the heterogeneous City may still keep paying you. These frequentations in the company of a sculptor friend had been incidental to our reaching a small artistic foundry of fine metal, an odd and interesting little establishment placed, as who should say in the case of such a mere left-over scrap of a large loose margin, nowhere: it lurked so unsuspectedly, that is, among the various queer things that Rome comprehensively refers to as "behind St. Peter's".
Henry James - Italian Hours: Other Roman Neighbourhoods - 1909
Henry James met the sculptor Hendrik Christian Andersen in Rome in 1899. He became one of his first patrons by purchasing a bust of Alberto Bevilacqua, a young man who was a close friend of Hendrik.

Bronze statues by H. C. Andersen: (left) Angel of Life for the family chapel at Cimitero Acattolico (it was exhibited at the 1911 World Exhibition of Rome); (right) The Joy of Living, a group for the "Fountain of Life" (see a similar subject in a 1928 statue by Giovanni Nicolini at Villa Borghese)

Andreas died of tuberculosis at the age of 33, in 1902. His wife Olivia came to live in Rome where he supported the activity of Hendrik. Plans were made to commemorate Andreas by building a large funerary chapel upon which a bronze sculpture was placed in 1918. In 1933 the statue was removed for maintenance but when Hendrick wanted to place it back, the Management of the Cemetery denied permission on the grounds that its nudity and size were excessive. The design of the chapel led Hendrik to envisage a plan for a World City, full of sculptures and galleries and museums and centred around a monumental fountain. The image used as background for this page shows a decorative relief for the Andersen chapel.

Details of Villa Helene in Via Pasquale Stanislao Mancini

Olivia Cushing died in 1917 and he left an important sum to Hendrik, who used it to start building a villa as part of his ideal World City. The villa was completed in 1925 and it was dedicated to Helene, Hendrik's mother who lived there until 1927. The building is situated at the beginning of Via Flaminia near Porta del Popolo in an area which was developed after WWI. Its design reflects Hendrik's admiration for Florentine Renaissance. Previously he had a house in Piazza del Popolo and a studio at Passeggiata di Ripetta.

Details of the decoration: (above-left) entrance hall; (above-right) lift; (below) upper floor

Andersen died in 1940 and bequeathed all of his work to the Italian State, although he insisted that Villa Helene be made available to his model and adopted sister Lucia until her death, whereupon in 1979, the house was taken into the State's full-time ownership. It is a now a museum dedicated to him. It was inaugurated in 1999 for the fifty-ninth anniversary of his death.

Living Room (upper floor)

The upper floor housed the apartment where Hendrik lived and received his guests. The walls have an elaborate white and golden stucco decoration. The furniture is rather anonymous. The key interest of a visit lies in the two large studios in the ground floor where many of his works are displayed.

Left Studio Room: statues, mostly models for the "Fountain of Life"

Henry James and Hendrik Christian Andersen met in person six or seven times only, but they maintained correspondence for around fifteen years. James was informed by Hendrik about the plans he was developing for his ideal World City and he actually saw some of the monumental nude figures for the Fountain of Life. James did not share Hendrik's vision and perhaps this is why he ceased corresponding in 1915.
Entering the Left Studio brings to mind The Weston Cast Court of the Victoria and Albert Museum which houses casts of large Italian Renaissance masterpieces in a small space.

Right Studio Room

The other studio is less dominated by the figures for the Fountain of Life and it contains smaller statues, busts and studies for other monuments, almost all characterized by nudity in dancing poses.

Plan for the Fountain of Life

Twelve statues were planned to be placed around the fountain. Two of them showed a naked man and a naked woman on a horse. Four portrayed Morning, Evening, Day and Night. Another four depicted The Progress of Humanity, The Joy of Life, Love and The Step (a couple making a step forward). Finally two statues portrayed a man and a woman in prayer. See some large allegorical statues which in the early XXth century were placed at Monumento di Vittorio Emanuele II and at Ponte Vittorio Emanuele II.

Morning (left) and Evening (right)

The Fountain of Love never materialized, but the Fascist regime (1922-1943) too had a penchant for monumental nude statues, although in a more composed posture. Stadio dei Marmi was decorated with statues of athletes symbolizing Italian provinces and statues of naked males were placed at EUR, the new neighbourhood which was expected to house the 1942 World Exhibition. Other nude statues of the 1930s can be seen at Galleria d'Arte Moderna del Comune di Roma.
You may wish to see some early XIXth century masterpieces portraying naked mythological heroes by Antonio Canova and Bertel Thorvaldsen which had a lasting impact on sculptors who came after them.

Other houses worth a visit:
Blanceflor Boncompagni Ludovisi
Pietro Canonica
Isa and Giorgio De Chirico
Mario Praz
Keats-Shelley