In 1883 he moved to Copenhagen, which he found a better working place, and had his breakthrough with the sculpture "A barbarian woman carries her dead son home from the battle", created during a stay in Rome that same year. It was acquired by the brewer Carl Jacobsen, the son and heir of Carlsberg-founder Jacob Christian Jacobsen, who was a great admirer of both classical and modern sculpture and was building an ever-growing private collection which in the end turned into the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek