Education
Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts.
Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts.
He is remembered in particular for his figures from Nordic mythology and for the Ragnarok Frieze. After graduating, he spent 10 years in Rome where he became Bertel Thorvaldsen"s closest assistant as can be seen in his marble bust of Bernhard Severin Ingemann (1820). On returning to Copenhagen, he organized the decoration of Church of Our Lady, preparing models for the figures of the 12 apostles but in the end Thorvaldsen received the commission.
His masterpiece, the Ragnarok Frieze, which occupied him for many years, was completed by Herman Wilhelm Bissen after his death but was later destroyed by the Christianborg fire in 1884.
There is a plaster cast of part of the frieze in Statens Museum for Kunst. In 1829, Freund became a professor at the Academy.
Inspired by time he spent in the south of Italy, Freund had his official home, Materialgaard, decorated in Pompeiian style. Young artists such as Georg Hilker, Heinrich Eddelien, Constantin Hansen and Christen Købke completed the work using Freund"s designs.
An early proponent of romantic nationalism, Freund was the first Danish sculptor to work with Nordic mythology, creating 12 statuettes including Loki (1822), Odin (bronze 1827) and Thor (1829), all inspired by ancient Greek and Roman mythological works.