The original Christus statue was installed in Denmark in 1833 and the artist, Thorvaldsen, died in 1844. That makes the work too old for copyright protection in the U.S.
But (big but here) copyright law outside the U.S. can be quite complicated, especially when it comes to the "moral rights" of artistic works. The fact that the church did not begin using replicas of the statue until over a hundred years had passed since the death of the artist puts this in fairly safe "public domain" territory, in most parts of the world.
It's a shame that the Mormon church has to appropriate a work that was commissioned by Denmark's Evangelical Lutheran Church. It's almost as if the Mormon church has no talented sculptors of their own, or somehow lacks the financial capacity to commission their own statue of Jesus.
Why don't they appropriate the Vatican's Pieta while they are at it? Oh right, that's too identifiably Catholic.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/23/2020 11:05AM by summer.