Ganimede and the eagle

This cast, of which two marble versions are known—one at the Thorvaldsen Museum in Copenhagen and the other at the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, Virginia—was donated to the Academy on November 20, 1831: “Signor commendatore Thorwaldsen has presented the academic gallery with the plaster cast of the statue of Ganymede”. Upon his election as academician, in March 1808, Thorvaldsen had given to the Academy, according to the statute, a plaster bas-relief (probably A genio lumen) which however he requested back the following July in order to translate it into marble, promising in exchange another, more perfect plaster. The gift of Ganymede, many years later, honoured that old promise. (P. P.)