Jørgen von Cappelen Knudtzon

Life & Legacy

Jørgen von Cappelen Knudtzon (28 April 1784 – 29 July 1854) was a Norwegian businessman and patron of the arts. Born in Trondheim to a prosperous mercantile family of German extraction, he travelled to Hamburg, Germany to study commerce. Upon his father's death, he inherited the family business, though his brother-in-law Lorentz Johannsen became its director. With the family firm's trade ships Knudtzon often travelled to foreign destinations in Southeast Asia. At one occasion the ship wrecked; in the subsequent tumult he made friends with the Scot Alexander Baillie, with whom he would later travel around Europe.
His profound interest in art was expressed in his numerous donations to artists and his own art collection, which included both antiquities and contemporary artworks. The Danish sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen made sculptures of Knudtzon and Baillie; as an expression of gratitude, Knudtzon advocated the creation of a museum dedicated to Thorvaldsen in Copenhagen.