The marble and the bronze seem expressionless since Robert Jacobsen has given the scorned and ridiculed material a new greatness!” ![]() ![]() What was previously considered rich and noble now seems to express a superficial richness and fraudulent nobility. In an article from 1959, the author Eugène Ionescu wrote, “ Once you have experienced the figures of Robert Jacobsen, it is often quite difficult to be moved by the well-known sculptures in marble, bronze or gold. Here, through the inspiration from African art and by using old bicycle chains, cogs, ball bearings, nuts and rusty exhaust pipes-found at the scrap yard-he created figures of an inner richness and a quiet sense of humour. Robert Jacobsen’s path to his final collection went through the building of Musée de l’Hommes at the Place du Trocadéro, on to the flea market, the galleries and the second-hand shops in Paris, to end at his studio. Unfortunately, I have also seen this label being abused at auction sales by attaching it to objects that belong to the category of airport souvenirs. It is also quite common at tribal art fairs or auction sales to see masks and figures with ‘Provenance: Robert Jacobsen’ attached and they are often highly priced. Among others, the town hall in Gladsaxe near Copenhagen can boast quite a large number (239) of masks and figures from West Africa! Today, a large part of Robert Jacobsen’s collection have been scattered to the winds and are now included in renowned collections all over the world. They had a wonderful time, and he was a magnificent liar, Robert reported, but he knew exactly when Mon Frère was most mendacious -when he started to swear by the heads of his children. This was taken as evidence of him being a person with malicious intentions! Robert had difficulties matching this story. One day, Mon Frère told Robert that his grandfather had once killed a man, and the blood from the dead man was white. When he came to visit, it could take days to agree upon the prices for the various objects.īetween negotiations, Robert would drink coffee and Mon Frère would eat kola nuts, and they would take turns in telling stories about each of their families. One of the vendors that often approached Robert Jacobsen was his black African ‘brother’, Mon Frère, who claimed to be a Malian prince. This resulted in him being approached by vendors from near and far that wanted to visit him to show what they could offer of magnificent and very ‘rare’ objects. During the following 20 years, I would visit Robert in Taagelund close to 150 times!Īt this point, it was well-known around Europe that Robert Jacobsen was an insatiable collector of ethnographical objects. It was during this first visit to Robert Jacobsen that my interest in ethnographical art was born and I myself became a collector. The newly renovated farm-building built around a central courtyard was like a jewel box filled with ethnographical finds-from African masks and figures, Catholic icons, Buddhas from Thailand, Burma and Cambodia, fire gilt lama heads and Avalokiteshvara figures from Tibet, Shiva figures from Sri Lanka, Ganesha elephant gods from India, head pieces from Tibet and Afghanistan, handwoven rugs from Bhutan, Inuit figures from Greenland, antique mugs from Germany to a large collection of ethnographical ornaments. ![]() Our visit took place on a beautiful sunny day in July of the same year, and it was not just the sculptor Robert Jacobsen we visited in his exciting home in the peaceful village of Taagelund, just outside Egtved-it was also a visit to the collector of a multitude of ethnographical objects-Robert Jacobsen in his fabulous universe.
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