Although it rained heavily, boats filled with artists, poets, students, physicians, mechanics, and naval officers went out to meet him; each boat had a flag with an appropriate device, that of the artists having Thorwaldsen's Three Graces, the poets, a Pegasus, and so on. The meeting with his friends on the deck of the ship was a pleasant surprise to the artist, who was hurried ashore amid the firing of salutes and all sorts of joyous demonstrations, a vast number of boats rowing after that in which he was seated. His carriage was drawn by the people from the quay to Charlottenburg, where a vast crowd assembled to get a sight at him. His form was tall and erect, his step firm; his long white hair fell on his shoulders, and his clear eye and benevolent face beamed with intelligence and sympathetic interest in all around him. He was led out on a balcony, where, uncovered, he saluted the people, who greeted him with wild applause. Thorwaldsen smiled and said, "Would not any one think that we were in Rome, and I were the pope about to give the benediction _urbi et orbi_ from the balcony of St. Peter's?"
One ovation after another followed, day by day, and such crowds of visitors went to see him that he was unable to unpack and arrange his possessions which he had brought from Italy, or to work at all, which was worse to him. At last he began to do as he had done in Rome, and to receive his friends with his chisel or modelling-stick in hand. He lived frugally, and continued many of his Roman habits of life; but he was forced to dine out every evening.
He was now sixty-eight years old, but he did a vast amount of work in one way and another, and was so pursued by all sorts of people who wished to engage his attention in a variety of projects, that he seriously considered the question of leaving Copenhagen. He became very fond of certain families where he visited, among which was that of the Baron von Stampe, who, with his wife and children, were soon treated by the sculptor as if they were his own kindred. He went with them to their summer home at Nysoë, and while there the baroness persuaded him to model his own statue. He did this imperfectly, as he had no suitable workshop; and when the baroness saw his difficulty in working in an ordinary room she had a studio built for him in a garden near the castle. She took the time to do this when Thorwaldsen was absent for eight days, and in this short space the whole was completed, so that when he returned it seemed to him like magic. This studio was dedicated in July, 1839.