VOGT, Adelgunde

Adelgunde Emilie Vogt (née Herbst), Danish sculptress. She studied under the sculptors Herman Ernst Freund in 1837 and Bertel Thorvaldsen in 1840, and specialized in portraying animals, many of which are wood carvings. She was the first female Danish sculptor to achieve a certain amount of acclaim.

Sculptors must be good at drawing, and Adelgunde acquired this skill while bedridden from the ages of 12 to 14 after a fall. She proved so talented that her parents procured drawing lessons for her until she was discovered by Freund and Thorvaldsen.

She won the Academy Awards Neuhausen Prize in 1839 for her Cow with Suckling Calf. In 1843 she was nominated for membership in the Academy but as a woman she was only allowed an honorary membership. Her 1863 work Two Horses Standing is exhibited in the National Gallery of Denmark.

When she married in 1846 and had children, her career waned, but she returned to it after her husband’s death in 1855.