Jason With The Golden Fleece

myminifactory

This masterpiece marks Thorvaldsen’s groundbreaking work. Jason was initiated in Rome in 1802; completed in plaster, commissioned in marble by the wealthy English art patron Thomas Hope in 1803; but not delivered until a quarter century later. Jason is a Greek mythological prince whose unscrupulous uncle Pelias had unjustly seized power from Jason’s father, King Aison. To regain the throne, Jason needed to secure the Golden Fleece, which was safeguarded by a ferocious dragon in a distant land. Jason set sail with his men to find it, and after surviving numerous perils and challenges, the fearless young man and his comrades finally discovered the Fleece; this sculpture depicts the proud Jason at the moment when, with the Fleece draped over his arm, he is descending onto the ship that will return him to his fatherland. The Fleece was magical, guaranteeing fertility and wealth to the land that possessed it – so by obtaining it, Jason established that he was not only a prince in name, but indeed, equipped to rule his land in the best possible manner. The notion that a person’s station in society is determined by human abilities rather than inherited privileges is a fundamental democratic principle. As well known, classical Greece was the cradle of democracy, and Thorvaldsen’s Jason made its appearance on the artistic scene at precisely the moment when pro-democracy sentiment was making a powerful impact in Europe. To Thorvaldsen’s contemporaries, Jason made clear that the neoclassicist Thorvaldsen had succeeded in reviving classical antiquity with all its implications – including hope for freedom in the future. Hope’s marble version of Jason was purchased by Thorvaldsens Museum at an auction in England in 1917. The lifesize clay version of this sculpture was created in 1803. This larger marble statue (scanned), reaching a height of 242cm (95 in), was however not completed until 1828. The pose is reminiscent of the Apollo Belvedere, available to download and 3D print here. This scan is a merge of two scans by Scan the World (back) and Geoffrey Marchal (front + fleece), whose scan of Jason can be downloaded here.