Exhibited: “Bad Timing - or How to Write History Without Objects”, Den Frie, Copenhagen, 2023, cat. no. 5. Exhibited: “Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen”, 1863–1945, Retrospektiv Udstilling", Den Frie, Copenhagen, 1946, cat. no. 6.

The story of Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen is one of a highly unconventional, powerful and modern woman who is not afraid to break with the prevailing norms of the bourgeoisie or the accepted gender roles in a marriage. She marries the composer Carl Nielsen, and it is a tempestuous and not undramatic meeting of two great and uncompromising temperaments. She educates at Tegne- og Kunstindustriskolen for Kvinder in 1882 and later enrolls as a student at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts’ School of Art for Women from 1889–90. Despite the fact that women did not gain equal access to education until many years later, Carl-Nielsen is a well-known name on the international art scene. She exhibits at the Paris Exposition in 1889, where her sculptures is noticed by the role model Auguste Rodin. In her day, she is an artistic role model, but later slippes completely into oblivion – despite being the first woman to be commissioned to execute a royal equestrian statue. She has enormous artistic integrity and imagination and - as co-founder of KKS in 1916 - is known as a fearless champion of change when it came to the gender differences in the Danish art environment. Fortunately, art history is not set in stone, and in recent years Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen has been back in the public eye. She was exhibited at a retrospective exhibition at Glyptoteket, where both her small bronze animals and larger monumental works could be experienced. At the tender age of 12, Carl-Nielsen picks up a lump of clay from the garden and models her first lamb. Since then, she is recognised for her numerous animal statuettes and sketches, based on an intimate knowledge of animal anatomy and a high degree of imagination. The lifelike sheep with its resting lamb up for auction here is the only known example of the motif executed in bronze.