Tove Clemmensen

Tove Thejll Clemmensen (11 October 1915 – 28 March 2006) was a Danish art historian and curator who was a specialist in eighteenth-century Danish furniture. She renovated several Danish museums including Bakkehuset and Liselund in the 1950s.

Biography Born on 11 October 1915 in Copenhagen, she was the daughter of the architect and archaeologist Mogens Becker Clemmensen (1885-1943) and the artist Augusta Thejll (1884-1980). Her brother Ebbe (1917–2003) became a successful architect. In 1946, she married the university teacher Mogens Bellmann Mackeprang who died in 1986.

Clemmensen's special interest in 16th and 17th century Danish furniture was inspired by her father's registration work. In 1940, she undertook a large-scale survey of furniture in Danish castles and manor houses, publishing the results of her restoration of Borreby Castle in 1942. With the assistance of the furniture expert Christian Axel Jensen (1878–1952), she recorded the castle's inventory. She went on to develop wider coverage of historic Danish furniture, pioneering a central archive at the National Museum with photographs of the pieces recorded. In particular, she developed an interest in the major Danish furniture designers of the 18th century. The work formed the basis of her 1973 doctoral thesis at Aarhus University, Møbler af N.H. Jardin, C.F. Harsdorff og J.C. Lillie og eksempler på deres interiørdekoration (Furniture by N.H. Jardin, C.F. Harsdorff and J.C. Lillie and Examples of their Interior Decoration Work). and The Recording of Furniture in Danish Castles and Manor Houses (1966).

Awards Clemmensen was awarded the Tagea Brandts Rejselegat in 1974 and in 1975 was honoured as a Knight of the Order of the Dannebrog.